Hey. Hey guys. Guuuuuys. (And gals). Guess what time it is.
You're right, it's time for more 2nd Edition Solar Borgstromancy
Welcome to Solar Resistance!
… 18 charms. Be right back, stiff drink, etc.
Okay! Solar Resistance is the first nearly 100% reactive/passive ability- it's not often rolled if you look at the list of actions that come up. Resistance (the ability) usually deals with Poisons, Sicknesses, Crippling, Environmental Hazards, and so on. Fittingly enough, it works with those things for Solar Charms!
Now, we're about 4 abilities into Zenith, so I can start to paint you a greater picture: The Zenith is the Iron-skinned monk, the itinerant preacher, wandering missionary. All of their caste abilities reflect their ability to endure and spread whatever cause they support, and word of the Unconquered Sun's glory.
If there is a place to go, a Zenith can get there, survive there, and convince whatever counts as people there to do or believe pretty much anything he wants.
The other thing to note is that Resistance, like Solar Melee, has several trees, owing to it's eighteen total charms. So without further ado…
Whirlwind-Armor Donning Prana
Resistance 1, Essence 1
Interesting- the first charm we see is a 1 mote Simple Charm with Resistance 1 and Essence 1 as a requirement. This basically means it's the most basic of magics, to the point that it's difficult to even believe it IS magic.
So what does it do? It makes you put on your armor (or clothes) faster.
Normally, it takes 60 seconds to put on armor (or twelve speed 5 misc actions) per point of Mobility Penalty, or minimum 30 seconds, in the case of Mobility -0. This penalty for the record reduces your Movement Rate, Athletics rolls for full-body ability, and Dodge DV, but NOT your attack pool or Parry DV. The Storyteller can also apply the mobility penalty to any action they think is difficult in 20 pounds or more of protective gear.
Now this is realistic- armor is often hard, heavy and uncomfortable to wear! This charm also creates a statement that characters are expected not to wear their armor 25/7. In fact, a character suffers penalties (based on the armor's fatigue rating) if they wear it longer than comfortable. These penalties can build to the point of making it impossible to sleep, which means on willpower regeneration and a whole host of other issues.
So you're not expected to wear armor all the time- this Charm exists to let you put your armor on more quickly, and thus it's possible for your characters to be caught getting out of bed without their gear.
But again, what does the charm do? A Breastplate or Buff Jacket, two of the lightest armors in the game, have mobility penalties of -1 dice. By normal rules that's 60 seconds of getting dressed. The heaviest armor, chain swathing, is -6 mobility penalty- or 6 minutes to get geared up!
By spending 1 mote and 6 seconds (Simple action), you complete 1 minute's worth of donning your armor. Therefore, to don say the heaviest armor, that Chain Swathing, you can suit up in thirty seconds. (this requires five total activations of Whirlwind Armor Donning Prana).
And, on another fun note: This Charm applies to personal worn items, including body armor, shields, clothing and warstriders.
Now, Storytellers- this charm exists to let you really punch up the time and surprise of your scenes, you can have a military camp be under attack and suddenly it's on your Circle's Resistance-Favored Armor-Wearing dude to gear up, go out and hold the line while his buddies get set up with whatever they can in the time bought.
It is not license to try and dick the players around by denying them their armor and gear constantly.
As a Simple Charm, it has the Combo-OK keyword, which means you're ostensibly supposed to put other reflexives in the combo as well…Anyway, on to-
Hauberk-Lightening Gesture
Resistance 3, Essence 3.
At this ability rating, this is 'Professional Soldier' level of Resistance, you can take a hit, eat bad food, and you are inured to a fair amount of pain. You are also very good at dealing with hauling your armor around. This Charm is the logical progression of "I wear armor quickly."
Hauberk-Lightening Gesture is the "I always have my armor."
By committing one mote, you can banish your armor to Elsewhere. Like Summoning the Loyal Steel, Elsewhere is a sort of personal pocket dimension non-space. If you're not Here and not There, then you're Elsewhere. The banishing itself is a simple action Speed 3, and requires you to have worn the armor into battle before (it's an ownership, borgstromantic thing).
Anyway, you commit the mote and now your armor is hanging out in perfect stasis, safe from being stolen, getting messy, outing you as an Anathema and who knows what else. You can also explicitly begin to put your gear on FROM Elsewhere- just reach into hammerspace and boom you got a greave or pauldron or whatever. Whirlwind-Armor Donning Prana works juuuuust fine here too.
I must reinforce the sheer bullshit here: You can at Resistance 3 and Essence 3 shove the heaviest personal scale armor into Elsewhere and then pull it out whenever you want. As long as this mote is committed, you can get your stuff back even if someone dumped you naked in the Great Ice or something. Granted armor might not help, but it's the principle of the thing!
Armored Scout's Invigoration
Resistance 4, Esence 1
The charm that follows Hauberk-Lightening Gesture is a utility effect, and one of huge ramifications if you think about it. Most STs and players don't, because it's fussy bookkeeping that gets in the way of the game. Regardless, I'm going to explain and then you'll know WHY!
From Page 374 of Exalted 2e core rules, we have the paragraphs on Fatigue Penalties. Basically every span of time, which varies based on what the character is doing and what the weather is like, the player must roll [stamina+resistance] at a difficulty equal to the armor's fatigue rating. If you fail, you take -1 internal penalty to all actions from soreness.
The minimum time between checks is 30 minutes, in the worst conditions. The maximum
amount of time a character can go between checks is eight hours. Even sleeping in armor is tiring to some degree.
So, Scout's Invigoration- you spend 3 motes per point of mobility and fatigue, lowering both by 1 to a minimum of zero. If you reduce Fatigue to 0, you never need to roll for accruing fatigue penalties. For six extra motes, you sleep in Artifact Superheavy Plate. AND you're back at full Dodge DV and mobility! Spend the appropriate amount of motes, and suddenly you are doing cartwheels in superheavy plate, mundane or magical! (Mundane plate needs like 12m committed).
Closing this charm out is the following paragraph, buried on the bottom left corner of the following page: This Charm applies to any combination of worn items that give a mobility or fatigue penalty. This includes body armor, shields, combinations of body armor and shields, warstriders and articles of clothing that impose mobility or fatigue.
Glorious Solar Plate
Resistance 4, Essence 3
Ahh, yet another Glorious Solar X.
For 10m+1wp, and/or an extra 3 motes, the Solar can create Medium Artifact Armor, (if they weren't wearing any before). They gain 10L/10B soak and 5 Hardness, and the armor has -1 mobility penalty and no fatigue. It only lasts for the scene though- fortunately scenes can vary in length, so you never know what tests you'll have to make!
The extra three motes lets you make a Shield which grants +1 to your post-calculation Parry DV against Melee Attacks, and +3 against Ranged attacks. That's equivalent to 2 and 6 dice, respectively.
Now, these four charms create a reasonably contained tree which in my opinion epitomize a few fundamental truths about Exalted the game, and Solars as Exalted.
First, Exalted is a Low Trust System. Player mechanics have primacy, as to ensure Storytellers cannot arbitrarily deny players things like their vital gear or the time to don said gear. In the playground game of 'Uh-huh-Nu-huh!', the player is intended to win. This is evidenced in how Charms exist to always ensure actionable ability (penalty negators to tool creators), and that when in doubt, the defender wins.
The players are the most important defenders.
Now, Glorious Solar Plate is Essence 3- this is the scope of Miracles, sometimes modest, sometimes grand. This is the tier of something from nothing. Even more so than Hauberk-Lightening Gesture, this Charm says that a Solar is never without armor.
Durability of Oak Meditation
Resistance 2, Essence 1
Ahh, now we're getting into some more exotic fare- This is the second Step 7 charm I've seen yet. The first was Falling Icicle Strike back in Thrown. It's low ability minimums imply it's meant to be combo'd….
For 3 motes, a solar can set their Hardness to 8 in Step 7, as Raw Damage is being calculated by their opponent. Hardness is accounted for in Step 8, when Raw damage is applied to the target. Hardness is like a secondary DV that can't be penalized outside of Magic, and is in fact a quality of Magic- Charms, Artifacts, Sorcery and other strange things grant Hardness… and as a systemic hack, so do all Mundane structures. (This is because Mundane Structures don't use Minimum Damage rules.)
Anyway, Hardness 8. That hardly sounds impressive, and you're right, it's not! It's totally unimpressive against Daiklaves, Goremauls, and a bunch of other supernatural nasties. Good thing it's meant to be used against mortals!
A lot of brilliant math went into Durability of Oak Meditation. Assuming your character has Dex 1, dodge 0 and Essence 2, his Dodge DV is going to be 2. The most common mortals are lucky to have a DDV of 1. If your Exalt is even reasonably competent at Dodge or Parry, let's say Dex 3 and Ability 3 + Ess-or-def +2, That's a DV of four. More than triple the mortal's own defensive value
Joe Mortal is also rolling something like 8 dice against your DV 4, IF they manage to hit you by one success, they're adding anywhere from str 2 +3-5 to their weapon damage, baring a few outliers like sledgehammers and the like. Big damage exists and mortals can get it!
But not all of them have it
Basically, after your DV, after you stunting your DV, after a whole bunch of other things, Joe mortal is probably swinging at you with 8 or less raw damage dice. And there, Durability of Oak Meditation shines. Once the damage is 8 or less, Hardness nullifies it completely- no Touch Effects, no On-Damage Effects, no Minimum Damage.
Do you want to use it constantly? No way! The advantage however of a step 7 effect is that you can make the decision to use it before the numbers get applied. This is the 'Knife bends against the body' trope
Hold on, because Step 7 is going to be our good friend for a while longer.
Spirit Strengthens the Skin
Resistance 2, Essence 2
Another cheap charm to combo, with an equally cheap cost of 1m per Pre-Soak Die removed from the raw damage pool. Basically, you can pay to remove incoming damage dice on a 1 for 1 basis!
Gameplay wise, not so great, most of us 2e veterans know why and I'll explain in a bit. In-setting though, this is a minor miracle at Essence 2.
To the person watching a Solar use this charm, they're seeing their magic fortify their body with an inner golden light- a blow that would have mangled limbs is turned into a minor fleshwound, or if carefully combo'd with Durability of Oak, ignored utterly! (You buy down the incoming damage until it's beneath your Hardness rating and it gets nullified).
Now, unfortunately, it's a poor charm, because here is an ugly truth of Exalted 2e: Your motes are your lifeblood, and all defensive strategies are actively compared to Perfect Defenses for reliability and mote efficiency. A lot of people don't like this, but the system is solved. If it costs me 8 motes to buy down an attack to not hurting me, that's two instances of Adamant Skin Technique I won't be able to use later on.
Thematically, this is yet another 'I am the Iron Skinned Monk' Charm, able to endure the petty damage of slings and stones.
Iron-Skin-Concentration
Resistance 3, Essence 2
An interesting charm, this one creates a new Reflexive Roll In Step 7 as you activate it for 2 motes. The difficulty of the roll is the Essence Rating of the being attacking you. If you roll successes Equal or Greater than their Essence, the attack is nullified outright! Environmental hazards have an assumed Essence of 1. The maximum difficulty is capped at 6.
This is a Rolled Perfect Defense. More than a few people think it's outrageously overpowered for what it does.
But here is the shining genius of this charm, and another statement of the Solar Experience- The Solar always gains an advantage in some way. Note that they don't win, get out ahead or otherwise emerge victorious, but their Charms are inherently biased in their favor, even when they fizzle.
When you fail the roll, Iron Skin Concentration gives you +4A/+8L/+8B Magical Soak that stacks with Armor.
Remember that 8 damage is more or less the average incoming assault a mortal can do outside of big exceptions like being Surrounded or Coordinated Attacks. This charm gives you 8 more soak, on top of your Natural Soak,and your Armor if you have any. Sure it doesn't prevent Minimum Damage, but still!
Iron-Kettle Body
Resistance 3, Essence 2
Ahh, the second-to-last charm in the 'Iron Skinned Monk Tree'. This is a logical progression of the previous three charms. For 4m+1wp, you gain equivalent soak to Iron-Skin-Concentration, and the soak from THAT charm stacks with Kettle Body oh so neatly.
Now the downside is that IKB is a Simple Charm, so you'll have to spend an action turning it on. It also cannot be used with Armor, so this charm is incompatible with say, Glorious Solar Plate or the rest of the 'I am Good at Armor' tree'.
But still, yet again the Solar theme shines through- he is never without protection.
Adamant Skin Technique
Resistance 5, Essence 3
I give you the last charm in the Iron Skinned Monk Tree. This is the Perfect Soak, the one against which all others are measured. For 4 motes in Step 7, before damage is rolled (rolling happens in step 8 after you subtract soak), you can set the rolled damage of an incoming attack to zero after all other modifiers.
Basically, it's worded this way to prevent any sneaky "After raw damage I add on an extra chunk of damage because magic!"
Now, Adamant Skin Technique does not protect against Knockback, being clinched (the rendered inactive part) or thrown. Touch Effects, Shaping Effects that don't deal damage, Non-damage environmental effects and so on. It also, like most other defensive charms, has a duration of Instant, which means it applies to a single (attack/damage) Roll.
As a Storyteller, the trick to dealing with AST is not to make a player take lots of damage, but to use their invulnerability to shake up the scene. To pick them up (Metaphorically) and throw them not into doldrums (making them run back to combat), but into Hot Water or Unsteady Ground.
Editorial: Flying Brick Stance
As I've posted elsewhere, one truth of Exalted, of it being a Wuxia setting, is that it is a place of techniques, not powers.
A lot of people, for practical reasons no less, wish Exalted were more like comic book heroes- where their powers were 'easy', always on. Where they did not have to worry about being flung into a wall and dying from impact damage, and so on. This isn't unreasonable- I personally would rather see adjusted fall damage rules and a better emphasis on cinematic effects over crunchy ones at the Storyteller level though.
The truth is though, a critical part of Exalted's aesthetic is the idea of active engagement. Of Technique versus Technique. Techniques however are learned- they have flaws, the users can tire, make poor decisions, and so on.
An 'always on suite' of Die Less Powers would certainly make things easier… I don't think it would make things Exalted.
Essence-Gathering Temper
Resistance 1, Essence 1
This charm is meant to evoke the idea that Solars are working against Vast, Powerful Forces, that fighting above their weight class is the idea state of being. Of risking injury or worse in the pursuit of their goals.
As for what it does, that's complicated. The reason for the complication is that if they didn't put a lot of throttles on the actual effect, it would get very broken very quickly. And for those of you who know what a Twilight Essence Reactor is, it already was pretty broken.
Summarizing, you activate this charm in step 8 for 1 mote- Raw damage has been calculated, it exceeds your Hardness and post-soak damage are being rolled. For every 1 die of damage being rolled against the Solar, the Solar's player rolls two dice in response. The successes they earn are capped by their [Stamina].
Every success on that capped roll gives them [Permanent Essence] motes back, to a maximum of 20 motes returned Per Action- I am pretty sure they mean Per DV refresh, specifically. They also note that no other combination of Mote-Getting Charms can break this limit.
Now, unfortunately, this charm was doomed. It was doomed, because by it's very nature, taking damage is frowned upon in Exalted. The risks are too great for the paltry returns. The reason Twilight Essence Reactor worked was that the corebook Twilight anima had a damage reduction effect- subtract rolled damage successes before they're applied in step 10.
Essence-Gathering Temper basically says "Roll 2 dice for every incoming post-soak damage die, you get [essence motes] back per success blah blah". If you rolled against 10 incoming damage dice, gained 20 motes, and then your opponent only rolled [Your Essence or less] successes, you gained 20 motes and suffered no damage. Hence Twilight Essence Reactor.
There was also the 'Hit you with the corebook' exploit of, technically, the Charm doesn't care who hits you, friend or foe.
Anyway, I personally believe from a narrative angle, of the imagery meant to be inspired by this Charm, that it's design space is relevant, it's execution however did not work out in Exalted 2nd edition. Borgstromanticaly, this is a charm that says "I the Solar am empowered by my foes!"
Willpower-Enhancing Spirit
Resistance 3, Essence 1
Like Essence-Gathering Temper, this charm is contingent on an attack making it to Step 8 and 10 without getting Perfected away.
By spending 4 motes in Step 10, after damage has been rolled and as the levels are being applied to your character's health track, you may roll 1 die for each HL lost. Every success replenishes a spent point of Temporary Willpower, and you automatically get 1WP just for activating the charm and suffering 1 HL of damage.
This Charm is Zenith- Willpower is a valuable resource, useful for all kinds of wandering priest/monk tropes and actions at a Storyteller System level, like enduring hardship and long-distance travel. Further, it can interact neatly with charms like Phoenix Renewal Tactic,
regenerating lost Virtue Channels in place of WP.
Unfortunately, like EGT, it's contingent on being dealt damage, and as much as we borgstromantically desire otherwise, it's very hard to deal damage to a character without killing them.
Battle-Fury Focus
Resistance 3, Essence 1
Here we have our 'I am steeling myself for combat' Charm. It exists as the 'I am the furious warrior, the passionate titan of arete and zeal! Mere fleshwounds do not trifle me!'
Mechanically, you spend 5 motes and a Simple (Speed 7!) action to take on the battle fury focus- it adds 1 die to 'all combat related pools' and reduces wound penalties by one. (This effectively means you negate your -1 and -2 HL completely).
At the same time, it puts a psychological crimp on your character- they can make decisions to attack at range and differentiate friend from foe, but you've basically traded away the ability to do certain complex actions in exchange for battle focus.
Unlike all other Charms with a longer duration, this one costs a willpower to end it voluntarily.
Bloodthirsty-Sword Dancer Spirit
Resistance 4, , Essence 2
Building off of Battle-Fury Focus, This Charm is 'The Same But More'.
For 10m+1wp and another speed 7 action, you gain +3 dice to all combat actions and negate all wound penalties- respectable!
But you also become a nigh implacable ragemonster, not the Hulk, but certainly someone scary as all get-out to the denizens of Creation. In the trance, your character can't speak or retreat- they can only move toward her targets by the shortest route, attack enemies within range, or wait for enemies to engage her.
The Solar will stay like this until there are no more enemies left to find, incapacitate or kill. There's also a risk of collateral damage with NPCs who are dressed similar to previous enemies, and so on. It's very much a role-playing charm.
To drive that point home, it costs 3 WP AND a point of limit to end the charm early. Further, to really drive the Roleplay part of it home, this cost is reduced to 1wp/no limit if a loved one or friend attempts to restrain the character.
However, if the WP isn't spent (they're out of WP for example), the Solar is almost guaranteed to lash out at the interruption.
Like I said- this is very much a role-playing Charm. It is intended to create an encapsulate a Trope of the berserker warrior, mollified by bonds of love and friendship. It succeeds in some ways and fails in others.
This charm shares the same basic problem with Battle-Fury Focus, in that they show their age late in 2e's lifespan, and the 'meta' changed around them. Like with One Weapon Two Blows being expected as the bread and butter of Melee, only to be supplanted by Iron Whirlwind.
Unbreakable Warrior's Mastery
Resistance 5, Essence 2
And here, at a very pricey Resistance 5 is the second keyword-negating Charm, after Integrity Protecting Prana. Unbreakable Warrior's Mastery is designed to deal with the Crippling Keyword! It requires an Excellency as it's prerequisite, and does indeed use a Stamina+resistance roll. Resistance Essence Flow would be handy as well.
Now, Crippling for Exalted works differently than mortals- better to say that a mortal can be crippled by any attack that deals 4 or more levels of damage at once. Limbs hacked off, maimed to uselessness, and so on. Exalted ignore that rule.
Deliberate action with the intent to maim- Exalted do not ignore that rule, but they also change the nature of mundane injuries- Exalted cannot suffer Amputation Effects without Magic- a limb can be crushed or mangled to uselessness, but it will heal straight and whole even without treatment.
Unbreakable Warrior's Mastery is for the latter rare case where a non-magical source of damage or hazard is enough to inflict a Crippling Effect, or the more common Magically Assisted Attack. I.E. Abyssal… Everything.
UWM is a 3m+1wp charm declared in step 10, and you roll [Stamina+Resistance] against the difficulty of the Attacker's Essence. Fortunately for most PCs, attackers are usually supposed Essence 2-3 if your Storyteller is sane!
Your Storyteller is sane, right?
More seriously, this Charm is meant to be a super-spot check against the really bad Crippling effects. Ostensibly, you're supposed to actually tank hits, and if crippled, run like the dickens and have your Twilight or other doctor-guy patch you up back at home base- that's the point of Solar/Supernatural Medicine, fixing the magically unfixable, after all.
Of course, what was intended versus what gets played doesn't always happen if ever. A lot of Crippling Effects are Mission-Kills, if not Really killing you, preventing you from running or otherwise.
Immunity to Everything Technique
Resistance 5, Essence 3
Once I heard a story about how someone successfully argued this charm prevented their character from dying. I shed tears for that storyteller, I truly do.
Onward! Immunity to Everything Technique is the 'Jesus with the Lepers' Charm of Solar Exalted. The 'Walk amidst the plague victims and bring the holy word of the Lawgiver/Unconquered Sun.'
Mechanically, it protects a character from being infected, dosed or contracting any new Sickness, or Poison effects. If they were already affected by something, this charm negates any damage it deals the remainder of the scene. It doesn't cure you, but it at least keeps you from dying while your body fights it off.
It too requires a Resistance Excellency, which makes sense because you resist diseases and poisons with Resistance rolls.
A note about disease: Unless it's Magical, detailed in Corebook or elsewhere, Exalted and other supernatural beings ignore mundane diseases. The common cold for example is hand-waved utterly. Exalts never have to worry about blood poisoning (gangrene/sepsis) from infected cuts in muddy battlefields.
Magical diseases are ones that infect the spiritual architecture of a person or the structures in their body- if your liver is a temple to purity of blood, then a supernatural sickness is one that turns it black and heavy with filth.
Body-Mending Meditation
Resistance 1, Essence 1
There are a lot of Essence 1 Charms in Resistance, but only a handful of Essence 3 Charms! Three to be exact- AST, Immunity Technique and Glorious Solar Plate. But I digress.
Body-Mending Meditation is another Trope Charm, this one being the 'mythic arts of monks who can heal faster by meditating'. It is a Supplemental, and it explicitly is meant to supplement the act of focused resting. The action you're supplementing (defined by the charm) takes 1 hour without a Stunt or Charm. I need to stress that, you can stunt this happening faster if you describe it awesomely enough. There are also Solar Medicine effects which make treatment (this action is essentially self-treatment) go faster.
Now, as an aside- Solars do not regenerate. They are not Wolverine. The distinction is that a Solar, in terms of human excellence and skill, is putting their body, mind and spirit in the right state to encourage fast healing. The issue is that many people want combat time healing, and currently, the precedent and holders of that niche are the Lunar Exalted.
Can Solars develop combat-time healing? Certainly, but it won't look or act a thing like Lunar, Abyssal or Infernal healing.
Regardless, here's what BMM does: You spend 10m and roll [Stamina+Resistance]. (Subtracting wound penalties) at Difficulty 1. if you succeed, you speed your healing by a factor of 10.
It takes 3 hours of bedrest to heal any bashing level normally. That's like anything from a deep-tissue bruise to broken bones. Exalted heal that shit like nothing.
Body Mending Meditation lets you heal that broken arm in 18 minutes per number of Bashing Levels in the injury. (an injury is basically a box around the HLs that were filled when it was inflicted, once they're all healed, the injury is gone).
Lethal damage of course takes longer to heal, scaling up with the severity of the wound penalty. 6 hours for the -0 HLs, 2 days for the -1s, 4 days for the -2s, and 7 days for the -4 HL.
If you were wounded with lethal damage to the -4 HL and then used body Mending to patch yourself up, that -4 would take 17.5 hours to heal. Then another 10 hours for every filled -2, 5 hours for the -1s and so on.
A Heroic mortal with the same 7 HLs full of Lethal would take nearly three months to get back to full health, assuming they weren't horribly crippled! This is a big fucking deal!
Here's one last thing that Body-Mending Meditation does- you can activate it when you're inactive- which means 'Unconscious' or 'Locked a mountain prison dedicated to keeping you secure for ten thousand years'...
Ox-Body Technique
Resistance 1, Essence 1
Ahh, Ox-Body Technique, the much maligned, and woefully underpowered and underappreciated. Still, this charm only suffers in context of the kinds of games that get played, not the games that were intended to be played.
A non-heroic mortal has 3 Health Levels: Unhurt, Hurt and Dying. Extras are basically regular mortals who have an additional rule that says 'if you deal raw damage 3x their soak, they die outright'. Actions are still taken against Extras, motes are spent, but dice aren't rolled, saving time.
Heroic Mortals and by extension Exalted have 7 HLs: 1x-0/2x-1/2x-2/1x-4/Incapacitated. These define the Standard Heroic Seven HLs. You also have [Stamina] Dying HLs, which exist as a buffer for someone to go and save your ass in combat.
A Heroic Mortal is John McClane of Diehard, enduring punishment that makes us normal folks cringe and cheer. Note that Heroic Mortals do get Bashing Soak from Stamina- just not Natural Lethal.
Anyway, 7HLs: it is in the storyteller system statistically unlikely to kill someone with 7 or less post-soak damage dice. This is because damage dice are rolled without 10s counting as 2 successes. As long as post-soak damage is 7 or less, you can safely assume a character can take one hit. Two if they're lucky on one of the damage rolls.
(It is however a problem when it's very easy to chain 4-5 hits in a row…)
In any case, a single hit puts you at a disadvantage- Wound Penalties. These penalties now reduce your dice pools,making you easier to hit, harder to fight back, and slower, easier to catch up. We call this the Death Spiral, and it's why getting hit is not a viable option without loooots of houserules or gentlemen's agreements.
So yeah, Damage dice- on paper, 7 or less is a good thing to aim for as a storyteller. You get a nice meaty hit and you can remind your players they can run. It's up to them if they take it. Ideally you want to encourage daring escapes that show off how awesome and resourceful your players are.
As for Ox-Body- It gives you more HLs! the solar version comes in several modes, and you can buy it [Resistance] times!
One gives you a single -0 HL
One gives you two -1HLs
And the last gives you a -1HL and two -2s
The latter is the most efficient overall, as even if you bought 5 versions of the first one, you'd still only have a buffer of +5 HLs, whereas in the other case, you'd have a buffer of 15. That's still 5 charms (40-50xp) that's focused on doing one thing: Giving you more of your most valuable-but-useless resource.
The trick is, HLs are part of the aesthetic of the Storyteller system, they're bigger than hitpoints. They're meant to avoid fussy bean counting like DnD or other systems.
And that's Solar Resistance!
Now now we review Solar Survival!
Friendship with Animals Approach
Survival 1, Essence 1
I'm just going to say it outright- it's the Disney Princess Charm.
More seriously, this is the mythic trope of the hero who can speak to the creatures of the world, asking the ants to search the cellar full of wheat for the one grain of rice he has been challenged to find. You ask birds to spy on your enemies- give your wolf companion complex commands that eschew the need for extended training, and so on.
As for what this charm is saying about the Solar Exalted- That their skill and prowess means they can communicate even with low animals- they skip the need to teach an animal how to respond to a prompt, and converse with it directly.
The charm itself cost 3 motes and lasts for the scene. It has two key functions, the first is letting you talk to animals 'as if you shared a common language'. They go on to point out that animals inherently have a limit on what they can comprehend, so you have to talk down to their level to make sure they understand you.
The other thing this charm does, is that it prevents natural animals from attacking you, so long as they aren't maddened by pain or some kind of magical compulsion to attack you. You can march into a pride full of lions and they won't bother you! Like Body-Mending Meditation, you can activate this charm while inactive, preventing wild creatures from bothering you while you sleep or are indisposed!
Those who have older copies of the 2nd edition core book might note that this charm requires Majestic Radiant Presence as a prerequisite. This was errata'd very quickly as being unnecessary. Early in 2e, before publication, cross-ability prerequisites were considered, and only that one was left around by mistake.
Or it could have just been a typo. Who knows? Friendship With Animals Approach has no prerequisite charms.
Spirit-Tied Pet
Survival 3, Essence 2
This is the first Background-Granting Charm in the game, specifically focused on giving you a Familiar- and more to the point, giving you a magically superior Familiar! Narratively it's the Heroic Trope of the great champion's loyal companion. Babe the Big Blue Ox, for example, or Odin's crows.
For Solars, this is the 'Impossible Friendship' Charm. Not exactly being Remus raised by wolves, but similar in that you can secure loyal companions that endure throughout your journeys without fail.
Now as we've seen over the years, the canon Familiar background is mechanically underwhelming, and these charms show their age for the same reason. I believe 1e Familiar was better described, but we'll focus on the 2e version for now.
The charm itself costs 10m+1wp; +1 experience point per application- and you must use it a number of times equal to a creature's Familiar Rating in order to secure it as a familiar.
So like, assuming a tiger is Familiar 3 if you bought it at chargen- you use Friendship with Animals to secure the tiger's loyalty (described as a requirement in Spirit-Tied Pet). Once that's done, you use Spirit-Tied Pet three times, spending 30m, 3wp and 3xp to secure a 3 dot familiar.
Now, taking a creature on with STP overrides any previous Familiar bond you had- Non-Sidereals can only have one Familiar, as far as I'm aware.
If I am reading the charm right, you also can use it an additional number of times to rank a 'low level' familiar up to 5 dots- so the 3 dot tiger can be leveled to a 5 dot tiger. But if a creature is already listed as a 5 dot familiar, you can't get the raising-it-higher benefits as a surplus.
So, setting aside that this charm connects to mechanics that leave something to be desired (poor animal statlines, etc), I should stress what this charm and it's prerequisite allows you to do:
You can make a loyal pet out of any natural animal. Creation is a setting where tyrannosaurus rex exist alongside kangaroo mice or dinner-plate sized bird spiders. All of these are valid targets for loyalty-securing and by extension, Spirit Tied Pet. Some of them will be more challenging, but you can do it!
Bestial Training Technique
Survival 4, Essence 3
Here we have another of the Solar's training effects, using the same 5 hour template as Tiger Warrior Training Technique. Unlike that charm, this one is focused on training animals. You can target regular, natural animals or your own Loyal Familiars.
Limits on dots aside, this charm is interesting and dare I say important, because it lets you control what is normally a very uncontrollable factor in Creation- an animal's personality. This charm allows you to in about four weeks, train a horse into being a nearly indomitable charger, able to ignore cannons and Essence detonations. (You can raise it's valor to 4).
You can also train it's total number of health levels and how big it is, to 10% of it's species average. Yes this means you can have a very very biiiiiig cat or turtle as a steadfast companion.
Now this is an Essence 3 charm which means it should do something Miraculous, and making an already full-grown animal 10% bigger is a neat trick. The real bread and butter though is you can raise an animal up to the intelligence of a 6 year old human child. I dunno about you, but I think that's a big freakin' deal.
If you happen to be doing all of these things to a Familiar, you raise the dot limits by 1, AND can train the familiar to full adult human intelligence. Yes- that means you can have an int 3-4 tarantula or tiger.
Hardship-Surviving Mendicant Spirit
Survival 3, Essence 1
I like to call this one the 'You smug bastard' Charm.
For 10 committed motes, you negate environmental-based External Penalties (that's subtracted successes after rolling) from Survival Rolls. Fluff-wise, this basically means you ignore all the troubles inclimate weather and nasty ugly wilds hit you with. Bugs don't bite you, the hottest deserts don't make you sweat, and you can walk around shirtless on arctic tundra. You never get infected or blisters from walking over whatever strange plants happen to be around- passive hazards are never your concern.
The cutoff, and this is important, is when the environment starts making you take damage by environmental hazards. If there is Trauma Rating involved, this charm only negates penalties on the roll to resist that effect- not the actual effect itself. So if you're trying to stave off frostbite, this charm ensures you'll always be at your best condition to make the attempt.
So as long as you're not actively at risk of injury via exposure, Hardship Mendicant Spirit keeps you comfy. Granted it's a very expensive 10 motes- fortunately it can be committed indefinitely, so you could march across a thousand mile desert and not even sweat!
So what does this tell us about the Solar condition? About Zeniths? It says that they can go anywhere in relative comfort. They don't need fancy cities to have a full and gracious life. The Solar's skill is such that they can live in the wilds without issue or complaint.
Element-Resisting Prana
Survival 5, Essence 3
This is a Permanent Charm that upgrades Hardship Surviving Mendicant Spirit (mouthful that charm name, seriously).
It's base effect is that any environmental effect with an active hazard/dangerous component no longer affects the character. You can't get poisoned by a poison arrow frog, you can't choke on smoke- you can swim in lava. (if you could swim in the first place). Strictly speaking, it negates Crippling, Sickness, and Poison Keywords based on Environmental Hazards.
Note that this charm does not protect your possessions by RAW, but most STs assume your charms protects your gear unilaterally. Your artifact gear will be fine unless it specifically is vulnerable to damage for some reason.
The main restriction on this protection, is that active effects authored by another character still hurt you. This includes both magical elemental blast generated ex-nihilo, as well as someone manipulating the environment to hurt you directly.
There is an upgrade charm in Glories to the Most High: The Unconquered Sun, which removes the 'deliberate action' clause.
Manifesting as the miracle understanding of Solar Survival, this Charm is very clearly the statement that 'The natural world cannot hurt the Solar'. They've mastered the world- attained understanding to the point that a bonfire won't burn them, and a blizzard can't make their skin crack and blood freeze from the cold. Crushing pressure won't bother them.
Strictly speaking, this charm says nothing about holding one's breath, though- as long as you have air to breath, you should be fine. I'll leave it to the Storyteller if they want to separate 'holding one's breath' from this charm's benefits.
Eternal Elemental Harmony
Survival 5, Essence 4
This upgrades HSMS as well- reducing it's committed cost to 5 motes, and allows you to activate HSMS while Inactive, like Friendship with Animals Approach and Body-Mending Meditation.
At Essence 6+, this charm reduces the committed mote cost of Mendicant Spirit to 0 motes. Which basically means you want to turn it on and leave it on forever.
Here we have a fairly straight-forward mechanical upgrade- using the charm purchase progression to describe how a Solar attains further enlightenment to the point of eschewing the need for active effort. Because this is normally such a niche effect- and before the upgrade charm in Glories: UCS, surmountable with clever action, it was proven to be a reasonable mechanical step.
Basically, before the Glories upgrade, you could still affect people who were running this charm, if you made an effort for it.
Food-Gathering Exercise
Survival 5, Essence 2
Here we have a surprisingly humble effect- but elegant in its simplicity. This charm is a Perfect Effect describing the survival action of foraging for food. It's a speed 5 simple action that uses long-ticks, so it's 5 minutes per use.
I need to stress that. Five minutes to find food for a small meal. Compare that to these Discovery Channel shows about people in the wild spending most of their day looking for food, hunting, trapping, foraging.
Nope, you just spend 5 minutes- and you don't even roll.
This charm, like Mass Combat, deals with Magnitudes. Starting at Essence 2, you can feed 75 people at the outset with five applications of this charm over the course of a day. Remember- I said it's a perfect effect, so it doesn't matter where you are, you will find enough food if you keep spending the motes. At Essence 5, you can feed around 650 people!
So digging down, the intent and function of this charm is to transcend the limit of the environment. It doesn't even mention the environment- it merely says you go out and find food per application of the charm. You're skipping any considerations like "But it's barren tundra and solid ice as far as the eye can see!"
Doesn't matter. Solar charm says "I find food." So you find food. There's no extracutaneous step like "You intuitively find a fishing hole to drop a line through." You just Get it done. For the Solar, the Zenith, they will never go hungry, as long as they have this charm.
Oddly enough, it's Survival 5- which I suppose could be frustrating when trying to buy it at chargen- but it's high ability rating reflects the fact that it's a 'Mass' effect. You're not supposed to combo it. It also does need a Survival Excellency as a prerequisite.
So what's the point? It takes about half an hour of your day to find food to feed your entire party and possibly a small army. That leaves 24 and a half hours left in the day… Oh so that's what it's for.
Snark aside, Food-Gathering Exercise is as written, a 'Remove Fuss' Charm. It's intended to keep you on track towards actually playing the game and not focusing on minutiae like making sure everyone has enough to eat. It's a 'statement' such at is, that foraging for food is 'boring'.
Unfortunately, it's so boring, that I've never seen anyone take this charm, or use it. The game expects you to track food management (for large groups of people) to make this charm stand out as a grand exception.
Trackless Region Navigation
Survival 4, Essence 2
This Reflexive Charm is one focused on navigating the world. It has a 7 mote indefinite commit (meaning it lasts as long as you need to complete a journey basically).
Like Food-Gathering, you can lead a group with a Magnitude less than or equal to your Essence- this means you can easily cover your Circle of 4-6 other pals, and up to 20 or so without issue. While the charm's working, you automatically and without fail move 10 miles per day across any terrain.
Gotta repeat that. Any terrain. You will make 10 miles per day without fail. It especially notes this as the 'harshest' terrain in the charm text.
In normal conditions, you go 20 miles per day! For an old-world contrast, the Roman Legions were required to cover 20 miles in about 5 hours under a loaded march. (with gear). That's probably assuming decent roads and the like. Trackless Region Navigation says "As long as it's not ugly nasty terrain, you and your group go 20 miles per day."
There's none of this "you move as the slowest member" or "nobody else is a trained woodsman." You simply Get it done.
As an added effect, the Solar succeeds on any valid survival roll to find her way- the term 'valid roll' means that the action is 'Applicable'. It goes on to say that you need sufficient information to make the roll- If you're in a featureless void with nothing to orient to, that's an inapplicable survival roll. But if you say, have the Imperial Mountain somewhere in view (which it's always in view, unless it's obstructed), you have a perfect reference point- always.
So, the Solar, Zenith- this charm says that they are the leader through the wild lands, able to take their flock of fellow sun priests, their military unit, their daycamp group, whatever the Solar wants to lead- they can take them there without issue, without fail.
Unshakable Bloodhound Technique
Survival 5, Essence 2
For 8m+1wp, this Charm supplements the roll to track a target across the wilds- it's hinging on the normal extended contested roll to pursue and evade pursuit as detailed in corebook.
the way it works is this: You both do your normal roll, and after all modifiers are tallied you compare your result to their result. If yours is better, you use that one. If theirs is better, you replace your roll with a number of successes equal to your target's, plus one.
So if I roll 3 successes and you roll 10 on the contested check, I get to count 11 successes against you. It means I will, invariably, catch up to you. But, interestingly enough, both parties never actually ignore the contested roll mechanics! If your natural roll would have been better, it gets used exactly as normal. This charm itself is a safety net.
On top of that it has the standard Solar template of 'if contested by magic, add your Essence in automatic successes to the roll to maintain this Charm.
Traceless Passage
Survival 5, Essence 3
This is the counter-actor to Unshakable Bloodhound Technique- and both charms are a good example of of the biased rolloff mechanic for Solar Exalted, as well as the contested roll to see who's charm wins in a given encounter.
Unlike Bloodhound Technique, Traceless Passage guarantees anyone trying to track the Solar gets zero successes on their roll. This means the Solar always earns more successes and widens their lead indefinitely- and like a lot of other Solar Survival Charms, this one applies to a group of people. At Essence 3, you can ensure a hundred people move through a region without leaving a trace.
If the charm is contested by another magical effect, you add the Solar's Essence in automatic successes to the relevant roll- so you STILL have a decent chance of getting away!
Note you can combine this with Trackless Region Navigation, crossing 20 miles per day AND ensuring you leave no trace of your passage.
Eye-Deceiving Camouflage
Survival 5, Essence 3
Not unexpectedly, this charm is a 'hide something in dramatic timescale' effect. It's not exactly Stealth or for Ambushes, but more a strategic or logistical stealth effect.
Spending 6 motes lets you roll [intelligence+survival] to define how hard it is to see through the camouflage. On top of that, it simply flat out says that mundane senses (like bare human eyes) can't detect the thing at all- even if you roll a single successes, your pursuers can only TRY to look for you if they have sensory magic like Keen [Sense] or a dog's nose.
The charm does point out that conducting a thorough search with dedicated miscellaneous actions can let mundane senses see the charm, however. The implication of this is that if you leave traces outside the camouflaged area, you might tip someone off and have them do a proper grid search, perhaps.
City-Moving Secrets
Survival 5, Essence 5
This Permanent Charm is a general expansion of the Solar's capabilities- each purchase of this charm (up to the Solar's Permanent Essence) increases the Magnitude limit on the various 'Magnitude Group' Survival Charms.
So a single purchase means you can lead a mag 6 group with Trackless Region Navigation. 5 purchases mean you can lead a mag 10 unit. Magnitude 10 is a First Age Legion if ten thousand people.
***
And here we conclude Solar Survival- and with that, the Zenith Caste!
Next time- Solar Craft!
