Remove ads

General Exalted Thread

Reader mode
I appreciate how, in trying to figure out what the rules tell me to do, there is a clear answer.

Second Edition's reflexive Move action was left open to interpretation.
 
I really prefer the 3E way of keeping track of distance.
You're at close, short, medium or long range (or extreme but that rarely matters). Which already makes things way easier to keep track off.

Then you just handle movement easily. It's reflexive and if you try to get into melee or out of it it's an opposed roll - (Dexterity + Athletics) for everything but trying to Disengage which is (Dexterity + Dodge). And its a single range band per turn.

That is before Charms of course, but those are mostly adding dice and related effects (double 9's and such). So again pretty simple.
 
I figure you still want a simple mat-map for gaming at a table, to keep track of where everyone is relative to each other.

But it would be such a simple map, and actually kind of fun to move the pieces around.

If you're using Checkers board pieces, you can even stack pieces on top of pieces to represent characters who are removed from the others vertically; king the piece for each range band upwards.

If one character is somehow one range band LOWER than everyone else (fell from the bridge, burrowing under the ground, swimming in the waters around the boat), then perhaps king it with the opposite color. Red piece for a player topped with a black piece normally used for an enemy character.
 
Aleph said:
Keris isn't interesting because of what her top speed could be if she focused her entire build on it. She's interesting because of her mobility, and what she does with it - like how she loves dragging fights into the water, where penalties to her opponents are bonuses to her, so she's got a four-fold advantage over them, and how that shapes her behaviour into an amphibious water-demon who lurks in the watering hole waiting for you like a crocodile, and who makes entire communities afraid to set foot on the beach.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Shit, now you've made me want to watch The Host again, thanks Aleph!

Hmm... Wouldn't be too hard to make an Infernal act like that particular monster either...
 
I am totally intending to buy Reputation (Jinn minn Riyaah MuHiitiyah) if and when I get the opportunity to. : 3
 
Aaron Peori said:
"Hell Fang Style"

This martial art is a unique style developed for the use of extremely heavy blades such as great swords and grand daiklaves. The user carries their blade in a reverse grip at their hip, holding it back and away from the body. The style compensates for the weakness of the weapon while emphasizing its strengths, focusing on beginning combats with unarmed punches and kicks meant to probe and provoke and opponent into giving an opening. Once the opening is attained the user unleashes the full fury of the style, dragging their massive weapon into combat to smash the opponents broken defenses with a series of devastating attacks that leave their enemies broken and shattered.

When used with Exalted proficiency the user begins to develop a powerful aura that alternates between deep crimsons and purples all the way to radiant blacks. With each strike he unleashes a wave of energy that batters the opponent, staggering and driving them back and into a corner until they can bring their heavy weapon to bear. Further, they can use this concussive force to propel themselves across the battlefield, performing dashing charges and amazing upward leaps that close on unsuspecting opponents and deliver bone shattering force.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Saber and Cloud use their zweihanders exclusively, without punching or kicking.

Given how easily you can get a "legendary brawling swordsman" by using both Melee and Brawl Charms without any Martial Arts at all, I'm not keen on designing a Martial Art that assumes you're going to be only going to be using the sword half of the time at most. Not when the entire point is to design a Martial Art around the two-handed sword.

Anyway, I took to looking at the special attacks of the animals in the Antagonists section for ideas.

A great sword style might include such tricks as special attacks that become available against prone enemies, enemies you've successfully rushed, enemies with lower Initiative, and enemies who are currently Crashed (especially if you just Crashed them yourself).

The special attacks could include a Smashing attack, where you use your sword's mass and momentum to knock someone down or away. The triceratops (or "ox-dragon") even has a special grappling gambit which can only be used to throw someone it grabbed with its horns. If you can smash someone away with your sword, perhaps you can press the full length of the blade against someone and toss them back or straight into the ground?

A lot of what I'm seeing is still applicable to great hammers and great axes, though. Especially the idea of upgrading a smashing attack into a throwing attack, which ought to be easier with the wider, blunter head of a hammer.
 
Shyft said:
At the end of the day, I'm not trying to make anyone like 2e or it's systems more or less than they currently do. I hope to however give people enough information to appreciate things.

Anyway, I'm still gathering data and trying to parse more examples into a coherent 2e movement system reference, in addition to elaborating on it in my greater Essay, which deals with Solar Athletics.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
*Nods*

Yeah, don't get me wrong, its really really interesting seeing what the system was meant to do before it got... distorted. The movement system is just probably the section of 2e I hate the most, since its hard to have fun with, beyond 'perfectly reasonable' doom speed calcs. Which get really weird cross splat, I'll see if I can dig my max speed calcs out from where I left them.

Anyways, I can't recall if you've talked about it already, but this is probably where you need to talk about cover, since movement is critical to get into and maintaining it. It also ties into flurry breaking, since to the best of my knowledge the only way in the core to break a ranged flurry is to get to 100% hard cover, making the attack inapplicable.

(As a side note, did you know extras with an attack dice pool less then/equal to the DV of the target they are attacking automatically miss? Because that is apparently a rule, not just a rule of thumb. Exalted 2e: an endless scavenger hunt for rules!)
 
Kylar said:
*Nods*

Yeah, don't get me wrong, its really really interesting seeing what the system was meant to do before it got... distorted. The movement system is just probably the section of 2e I hate the most, since its hard to have fun with, beyond 'perfectly reasonable' doom speed calcs. Which get really weird cross splat, I'll see if I can dig my max speed calcs out from where I left them.

Anyways, I can't recall if you've talked about it already, but this is probably where you need to talk about cover, since movement is critical to get into and maintaining it. It also ties into flurry breaking, since to the best of my knowledge the only way in the core to break a ranged flurry is to get to 100% hard cover, making the attack inapplicable.

(As a side note, did you know extras with an attack dice pool less then/equal to the DV of the target they are attacking automatically miss? Because that is apparently a rule, not just a rule of thumb. Exalted 2e: an endless scavenger hunt for rules!)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I haven't gotten to Cover Rules yet, so the next essay is probably going to be Anima Banner, Movement (which includes or at least mentions cover) and Solar Athletics because of how closely connected they are to Night Castes.

I actually don't know about 100% ranged cover and making the attack inapplicable. I haven't seen reference to that rule ever.

If by ranged cover you mean 'absolutely out of sight having effectively taken a Stealth Action' then yes- that makes perfect sense. But I still don't know where it is in the book if it does exist.

I know that if you're out of range of a given Ranged Weapon... quoting from corebook:

Range Penalties: When making ranged attacks, characters may fire or throw a weapon out to its Range rating without penalty. They may fi re out to twice this distance with a -1 external penalty, or between two and three times listed range at -2 successes. Accurate shooting beyond this range is impossible without the aid of magic.

So those 450 yard powerbows actually can fire around 1300 yards at like, -3 external penalty.
 
EarthScorpion said:
Or, to put it another way, "we gave our bows stats more comparable to sniper rifles and wondered why there was a problem".

(There Is No Wind says "hi", and laughs at the -3 penalty)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Pff, pretty much. Or didn't build up enough of the back end system to ensure those shots were more rare than they currently could be. I can totally buy sniping someone across Creation- I really question the fact that someone will have a clear shot 100% of the time, with no building, innocent bystanders, and so on in the way.

Setting that aside, I think I've managed to summarize the logic of Movement Rules. This is before any fiddly math though.
  1. Can you reach your objective in the span of a single tick of movement?
    • By single tick I mean any combination of Stunts, flurrying your Jump/Dash/Attack, and so on.
    • Related to this- If your target is another character, have they spent their Reflexive Move before or after you start moving? This will adjust the relative distances you have to travel to reach your target, and the faster character almost invariably has the advantage...
  2. If you can reach your destination in a single tick, you will be there on your Acting Tick, and further actions in a Flurry are legal, like attacking, or miscellaneous actions performed at location. (Moving to fix something, to close a door)
  3. If you cannot reach your destination in a single tick, you use all relevant per-tick movement rates to determine how many ticks it takes to get there. Relevant being your character and any other characters choices per-tick in choosing where to move.
    • This is most relevant with Move and Guard/Aim actions- because if you can move somewhere fast enough while aiming or guarding, you can likely abort the action into an attack before the defender has their full acting tick. Acting before their tick means they are stuck with whatever mode of movement they were using last.
    • It's safe to assume that characters can update their per-tick movement direction and rates from tick to tick, but most people don't for simplicity, instead roughly assuming everyone move in straight lines, or abstract directions towards or away something. Adorjan Scourges can't, because Death-Dealing Journey requires them to move at their full dash speed (19 yards per tick in Keris's case). Regardless, yes, you can zigzag, or run laps around a room.
  4. All actions in a flurry are resolved on the character's Acting Tick. This is why it's very important to have a high 'peak' movement rate so you can reach a lot of targets in melee- or have a ranged modifier like Iron Raptor, or using a ranged weapon in general.

Unfortunately, this is only half of the necessary explanation. The other important part is figuring out a way to communicate to players and storytellers a method of tracking location, distance and relative speeds quickly. Exalted 2e doesn't actually tell you how to do this, so I'm going to try and offer a method. 3e's range bands system I'm sure works a lot better at least at first glance, but that's not the point of me focusing on 2e.

If you don't know where you came from, how can you understand what comes ahead?
 
Last edited:
Obviously the simple answer is a Solar Charm! That's always how we bypass these inconvenient clunky rules systems!

"Fuck It, I'm Right Next To You Method"

Spend 4(?) motes, and as you swing your weapon, you are suddenly in range for the strike. Only reflexive instant movement magic can get the defender out of range in time, otherwise they apply DV as normal.
 
Last edited:
EarthScorpion said:
Or, to put it another way, "we gave our bows stats more comparable to sniper rifles and wondered why there was a problem".
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Exalted Composite Bow
Speed 6 Acc +0 Damage (STR+2)L Rate:3 Range 250.

Exalted Sniper Rifle
Speed 6 Acc +2 Damage 9L Rate: 1 Range 400

Exalted Orichalcum Long Powerbow
Speed 6 Acc +2 Damage (STR +6)L/2 Rate:3 Range 400.

So, in the Hands of of a STR 3 Exalt, an Ori powerbow is a faster firing Sniper Rifle.
 
Last edited:
Serafina said:
Then you just handle movement easily. It's reflexive and if you try to get into melee or out of it it's an opposed roll - (Dexterity + Athletics) for everything but trying to Disengage which is (Dexterity + Dodge). And its a single range band per turn.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's not quite right. You get a reflexive move on your action every turn, which takes you one range band. You can do anything with it except disengage from melee combat, and you never have to roll for it. Then, you can use your combat action (which you would usually use to attack) to rush or disengage. To disengage, you roll dex+dodge against your opponent(s)'s dex+athletics, and if you win you not only move one range band away, but if they chase after you before your next turn you automatically move another range band to keep your distance. Rushing is similar, but, counterintuitively, doesn't move you immediately. You roll dex+athletics against the target's dex+athletics, and if you win, then if they move away from you you automatically chase after them.
(You can, if it wasn't clear, use your reflexive move in the same turn as a rush/disengage action.)
 
So, let's talk about 3E War for a second. Being a guy who loves to get his Strategy on, I loved most of what they did for mass combat in this edition, but I was pretty disappointed by there being zero charms above Essence 3 for Solar War. This makes it really unattractive to pick War as your supernal, even if all the charms that are there are really good. So, I wanted to try my hand at coming up with some decent expansions for the Solar War. I counted 17 War Charms in the book, so I figured another 10 would take it up to being on par with the other big name Solar trees. Right now I'm going for one Essence 1 and 2 charm each, two Essence 3 charms, and three each at Essence 4 and 5. This gives enough high Essence effects to be an attractive Supernal, while giving room to add low level effects to use to build into the others.

I wanted to think of stuff that was in War's wheelhouse, and what came to mind was the 'flow of battle' as it were. It seems an apt metaphor for initiative, and so seems to be pretty in-theme. Here's what I've got so far (admittedly, it's an extremely rough draft):

Solar War Expansion:

Essence 1) Supreme Martial Instinct
Solar can roll Join Battle using War. Maybe part of a collection of minor effects as in Salty Dog Method or Master Horseman's Techniques?

Essence 2)
Solar gains initiative from withering damage inflicted by Battle Groups enhanced by his Order actions.

Essence 3) Golden Legion Battle-Glory:
The Solar's Order actions also grant a bonus to the receiving unit's Size equal to his (Essence/2) until his next action. This bonus does not grant extra Magnitude tracks.

Essence 3) Lightning-Flash Strategy
Simple action gives (Essence) reflexive Order actions.

Essence 4)
Once per scene, Solar can grant any ally the initiative he would normally gain from his War Charms. Resets on destroying enemy Battle Group, or defeating powerful singular enemies.

Essence 4) One With Strife Method
Free Full Excellency


Essence 5) Shield of the Sun's Chosen
Take a Defend Other action that covers an area and a huge number of people, costing (Size/2) willpower. This Defend Other action can interact with Charms of other Abilities as appropriate.

Essence 5)
Golden Legion Battle-Glory's bonuses are now scene long effects, and grant extra Magnitude tracks in accordance with the Size bonus.


I need one more Essence 4 and 5 effect to hit my goal of 10, but what do you guys think so far?
 
Found my Speed calcs. Here's the summary:

Solars: 242/248. Requires mote pool expanders. 138m Committed, and 2m per tick. No reflexive Dash or DV -0. 40XP on Athletics Charms, 40XP for mote pool expanders, for a total of 80xp.
Abyssals: 25/31 base, 26-28/32-34 with stunt. 13m committed. 32xp on Athletics Charms, 16xp on Excellencies for a total of 48xp. No reflexive Dash or DV -0.
Infernals: Urgh. Maximum Speed: 1976 yards per tick. This requires you be in a place of desolation, in water, riding a crystal surf board, and using the Scarlet Rapture Shintai. ITS STILL STUPID. Requires 16xp of Malfean charms, 8xp of Kimbery charms, 16xp of Cecelyne charms, 40xp of SWLiHN charms, 96xp Adorjan charms, and 48xp for Excellencies, for a total of 240xp assuming everything is favored (it won't be). 33m,1wp+10 uncommitted motes. Dashing is Reflexive and DV set to -0.
Sidereals: 15/33. 48xp, Athletics Charms. Dashing is Reflexive and DV set to -0, plus a host of other benefits.
Lunars (TAWs): 36/42. 72xp on Strength and Excellency Charms. 39m, 1wp. Dashing at DV -0 but not reflexive.
Alchemicals: 44/224 in water, 44/56 out of it. 56xp (Charms, Slots and Submods) 30m, 1wp. No reflexive Dash or DV -0.
Dragon Bloods: 15/33. 48xp Athletics Charms. 10m, 1wp. No reflexive Dash or DV -0.

And here's all the math and stuff. Also, for those curious, canon Lunars cap out at 1360/1768 yards per tick with 132m commited, and 50xp of charms. So yeah, they win.

Edit: for got to including Lunar mote pool expanders. Actually 90xp of charms with those added in. They still win.
 
Last edited:
Related to the above, one thing I've realized about the movement rates, is that combat is supposed to happen in much more closed in, tight spaces.

Not to say open battlefields can't happen, but like, people see 15 yards per tick, so they think "Oh, my battlefields ought to be 120+ yards!"

But thing is, you want people to be close enough that they can interact with each other on their acting ticks, and to make choices to dump all their actions into a flurry for a big burst of movement (Dash+Jump), or playing it safe with Move+Guard.

You want engagements to basically be in little bubbles- where everyone is 1 or 2 ticks away from each other in pairs and trios, but not necessarily everyone being packed into the same 20 yard square box.
 
Well I feel kinda bad about posting this right after my own previous post, but the essay is finished.

The Night Caste Solar Exalted

So here we are on the 4th caste of the Solar Exalted. As I've mentioned a couple of times already, each Solar Caste is supposed to be an archetypical pastiche of the classic Dungeons and Dragons classes. Pastiche to the point of deconstructive parody or outright aversion, subversion or critiques of the concepts.

So here we're going to talk a little about Castes and what they mean for players and the setting.

First of all, Castes are not Classes. Classes, as a concept, largely grew out of the idea of fulfilling a niche or 'role' in a party, satisfying some checklist to evoke the kind of story or setting the writers were originally referencing. I think we all can agree that 'Wizard' is meant to evoke Gandalf, but he is not the only wizard in fantasy literature that the original TTRPGs were inspired by.

Classes are also as much 'jobs', things a character does during their daily life as a means to well, live. It doesn't necessarily mean they're professionals, but they earn their living doing whatever their class covers.

Other settings basically look at Classes as this abstraction of what a person spends their life doing, but they're all-encompassing, ever-expanding categories.

Castes however, are not those things. For one, castes are finite. There may be an infinite number of 'wizards' in another setting, depending on how it works. But in Exalted, there will only ever be sixty Twilights. (Setting aside however many got flipped or scrubbed into Abyssals or Infernals. The point stands.)

That finite nature is actually even more relevant, because a great deal of awesome feats in the history of Creation were accomplished by Exalted who were not traditionally the caste their great efforts belonged to. There was likely two or three Salinia (Zenith Sorcerers) for every Bright-Shattered Ice (Twilight).

Secondly, Castes are not Jobs, nor are they 'roles'. A caste is potential, but not a proscription on what a character will do with his life. Any role a caste has is one that it's assigned as an emergent property by the state of the setting at any given time. Night Castes were spymasters and assassins in the First Age, because the First Age needed really talented spymasters and assassins. The Second Age shows a very lucrative market in criminal enterprise, by contrast- and there's no formal culture to explain what a Night Caste is 'supposed' to do.

That's really the crux of it- Whatever a caste is supposed to do is entirely contingent on the environment a given Exalt finds themselves in. Wizards are expected to do wizard-things, because they're wizards. Nights can do Night-things, but there's more to being a Solar than being your caste.

Now in practical terms for players: In pre-errata character generation, you're expected to spend at least 5 of your chargen dots divided among your caste abilities and you couldn't raise them past 3 before bonus points. So you could safely assume to be 'Professional' (Ability 3) at something Night-focused, and 'Average' in another, or some other relevant combination.

The other factor is that as Caste Abilities, they can be trained instantly by spending experience. You can go from Athletics 0 to Athletics 5 in an instant as long as you spend the xp.

This is supposed to evoke the idea that you can be a luminary genius faster than mere mortals, who take years to reach the same level in practical terms. Unfortunately, the nature of the ST system basically flattens out the importance of Trait 5 very quickly, leaving most of the burden of 'specialness' on the Storyteller communicating this properly, players remembering it, or Charms making thematic statements.

Ability 5 is Olympic tier- Peak Human. Any Exalt in any Caste can become that skilled in a minimum of 5 of the 25 possible abilities in Creation. They don't have to, but they can, easily.

Good-natured teasing aside, there is no more reason for a Night Caste to be a thief, ninja assassin, or talented acrobat than any other Solar. They're just going to find it easy to pick up.

The Night Caste Anima

Okay- this is actually a fairly unorthodox anima power and effect, and there are multiple interpretations, so I'll give you both and let you make your own informed decisions.

The first thing, is that Nights have more control over their anima than most- the other castes pay a flat cost of motes, or wait until the 11-15m level of Anima flare (which lasts for about 20 minutes normally, once you reach it).

Nights can pay 1 mote to 'mute' the expenditure of Peripheral Essence per-charm, as long as those Charms are not Obvious. If you do pay this extra cost, the peripheral essence you spent on the Charm does not add to your Anima Banner gradually appearing.

Muting the Peripheral Anima from an Obvious Charm requires you to basically pay twice as much. So a 20 mote Obvious Charm means you'll spend an extra 20 motes to keep the first 20 from making your Anima flare up.

Note that in no case is this surcharge committed Essence. It's just spent and you're good to go.

Here's where you get the two interpretations.

Interpretation 1: The Extra Motes to mute your anima spent do not add to your Anima Banner.

The logic for this is pretty straight forward- it'd be really silly if the mechanic you used to keep your anima from flaring up simultaneously made your anima flare.

Interpretation 2: The Extra motes and only the extra motes add to your Anima Banner.

If it costs a mere 1 mote per charm to mute any not-Obvious Charm, then it's actually very possible to spend say, 10 motes on an Excellency and 1m peripheral muting the motes, and only get the 1-3m caste mark level out of the deal. The idea behind this interpretation is that it puts a sort of logistical/tactical cap on how much you can mute your Essence, before you start showing off your Caste Mark (and making Stealth/Deception more difficult).

Alternatively you can spend 1m per charm from your Personal Pool to mute your Peripheral expenditures, and thus never add to your anima in the first place.

There are pros and cons to both interpretations- one is easy and elegant, the other has more room for interaction between ST and player.

Important to note: Regardless of your prefered interpretation, muting the peripheral Essence does not remove the Obvious Keyword. An edge case is like Eye of the Unconquered Sun- you can mute the anima flare of that Charm, but the Obvious Component remains. Remember, Obvious doesn't mean 'Everyone sees it automatically/screws you over'.

As a note on caste marks: At the 1-3m level, the Solar Caste Mark is visible, glimmering faintly on the brow and visible from certain angles. It's a Difficulty 1 [Perception+Awareness] roll to see the caste mark.

The second Night Anima Power is their 'spend 10m for big scene-longbuff'.
The buff itself is as follows: It makes shadows darker, sounds are muffled, any scents or physical traces the Night leaves behind and so on are all much harder to detect. As long as this Anima Power is active you increase the difficulty of all rolls to notice or track the Exalt by their [Permanent Essence /2], rounded up.

The interesting thing here is that unlike the other Anima powers, this one doesn't actually have a big obvious conflagration of Solar Essence associated with it. The Zenith power for example basically makes it Noonday sunlight for 20-50 yards around. By contrast, the Night one makes you harder to find- and it can be muted! Only Sorcery/Necromancy cannot be muted by the Night Anima.

But, once you spend 11m+ (unmuted) in the course of a Scene, you get the full corona effect that happens to all Exalted- but you're explicitly disguised to the point that while people can recognize you as a Solar, they won't be able to see your face or recognize anything about your body, clothes or other visually distinguishing features. The only exception to this is your Anima itself- if it's the second time they've seen it, they'll know it's the same Solar- and if they've seen you build up to that level, then they'll know it's you!

Anima Banners

Because it's very important to Night Castes, let's talk a bit more about Anima Banners.

An Exalt's Anima is essentially a sort of expanded reflection/projection of their Soul and Exaltation. It usually crystallizes into some kind of iconic or thematic form, and has colors associated with a given Exalted or Caste.

Terrestrial Exalted have very abstracted imagery in their Anima banners. If it becomes anything, it usually has some kind of draconic theme or aspect to it. They might elemental effects that evoke some kind of emotion, like an Earth Aspect's craggy skin cracking in military cadence. Sidereal Exalted don't have Iconic Anima either. They just glow the color of their Maiden.

Celestial Exalted however all have Iconic anima, which is usually related to their personality or personal history in some way. The Bull of the North had an Anima with a Bull Motif. A Dawn could have a tiger in their Anima. These aren't mandatory features, but they're common enough to be recognized trends.

That being said, any given Anima's iconic manifestation is actually pretty rare and brief. Unless otherwise noted, a given 'level' of Anima Flare recedes at a rate of one level per scene. So if you're at the 11-15m level, it will take 1 scene or about 20 minutes for you to cool down, if you stop spending Peripheral Essence. Some Charms might force your anima to a given level as part of their effect, like Eye of the Unconquered Sun.

Also note that you can spend 1m to flare your Anima to the 4-7m level (to make your Caste Mark automatically apparent), or to the 8-10m level to make a region of light about 7 yards wide, and it's bright enough to read by. Solars in particular never need to bring torches for this reason.
  • The 1-3m level is 'Glimmering Caste Mark'. It's visible, and perceptible, but not automatically apparent to casual observers. People need to try to see it.
  • The 4-7m level is 'Bright Burning Mark upon your Brow'. Think Hellboy's Crown of flame. The actual Caste Mark is itself something like a hologram that floats 'over' whatever is placed over it, even helmets. Stealth actions are taken at +2 difficulty because of this bright shining thing hovering over your head.
  • The 8-10m level is 'you are a human lantern'. You're surrounded by an unmistakable, bright glow that people can read by out for several yards. Stealth is explicitly impossible.
  • The 11-15m level is full Shonen Ki Aura. You are surrounded by a bonfire of Solar Essence that extends at least a foot above your head, and anything that comes in direct contact with this corona is bleached as if it had spent hundreds of years in the sun. You are explicitly visible for miles in this state, as a pinprick of light on the horizon or something similar. You don't necessarily light up the region for miles around however.
  • The 16m+ level is 'Totemic' or 'Iconic anima'. That Bull or Tiger motif I mentioned? This is the only time it really shows up. It is a Recognizable, Repeatable thing that lasts for the span of an Action, and if you don't spend any Peripheral Essence, it fades on your next DV refresh. Once you reach this level however, you will immediately show it off again the moment you spend more Peripheral Essence.
I think that about covers it for Anima and Banners… Oh last things: Solars can spend 1 mote to automatically know the exact time of day for the remainder of the scene.

Movement in the Storyteller System

In Exalted, movement is something of a complicated beast. It has a few basic terms and rules, with modifiers on top of that, but not a lot of explanation of how it all fits together. Here's my attempt at it.

The first part of Moving in Exalted comes down to Dramatic Movement- anything that isn't handled with the Tick system. This is things like 'walking across a room' or 'making the 6 month journey to Nexus'. The latter uses an entirely different system which is rarely invoked by Charms or Artifacts, and only sometimes Sorcery.

The short version of Dramatic Movement is if you have sufficient time, you get from point A to Point B, and all it costs is time.

The second, and much more common type of movement, is Combat Movement. The tick system is very important to it, but I want to save dealing with the rest of that for the Solar Awareness Essay.

For those who saw the earlier version of this section, I acknowledge a mechanical goof I made: All actions in a flurry are resolved on the Acting Tick unless otherwise noted.

Movement and Stunts
I haven't mentioned it below in any of my action analysis writeups, but I want to state that it's safe to assume you can add the bonus dice from Stunting to Movement Rates, in order to break ties and squeeze out that last little extra bit of velocity. The books don't say either way though.

The Move Action:
Movement in Exalted Combat is described as a Reflexive, Speed 0 Action with a DV penalty of -0. It has the implied limit of 1 reflexive move action per tick. This is why movement is defined as up to [Dexterity] Yards per tick, minus Wound Penalties and Mobility Penalties. The minimum Movement speed is 1 yard per tick.

The intent of this mechanic is as follows: You are supposed to be able to Move on your Acting Tick, and all non-acting ticks. I like to call them Recovery Ticks. But, you are only allowed to make a single Move Action per tick.

So if I have Dex 5. I choose to move on my Acting Tick. I can move a minimum of 1 yard, or a maximum of 5 yards over the span of a single tick.

The next tick comes up. The intent is that the system/storyteller should check in with me asking if I want to move again, in a different direction. Other characters in the scene may also take their Move Actions as well.

The important thing to remember here is that unless another effect specifies, all actions (even these Reflexive Move Actions) happen simultaneously on a given tick. You can't metagame or predict what someone else is doing without a system action or a Charm that says so.

So if 5 people act on the same tick, they all may declare their movement actions and directions/goals independently of each other.

Another way to look at the Move Action, is a mechanic for setting your speed. You pick Move or Dash, and that locks you into taking that style of movement action until your next DV refresh- you can't suddenly switch into a Dash or Jump during a recovery tick unless something says you can.

The Dash Action
Weighing in at Speed 3, DV-2 and not reflexive, this is a special stand alone action. It's not a Miscellaneous Action, (because there is magic that specifically lets you modify those and you don't want them to overlap). But it can be flurried with a handful of other actions in the system.

When a character declares a Dash, they are overriding their Movement Action, locking themselves out of taking a Movement Action. They instead move at a rate of [Dexterity + 6] yards per tick before penalties, and this movement upgrade applies to every tick the actually move. They also penalize their DV by 2, and cannot Parry at all without a Charm or Stunt.

If you just take a Dash action on it's own, you are moving anywhere from 2 yards (the minimum possible rate after penalties), or 11 yards per tick. Note however that Dashing is not a Reflexive Action- you can't opt in or out of it at-will. The point of making it not-Reflexive means it takes multiple action penalties, and puts limits on its use in flurries.

Once you're Dashing, you're going to stay Dashing until your DV refreshes 3 ticks later. You can move 2 yards per tick during a dash if you want, but you still count as Dashing.

Related to the above, your movement mode/rate is set for the duration of your longest Action taken during your Acting Tick. So if you flurry a Dash and a Speed 5 Attack, you get to dash for 5 ticks, not 3.

On Death-Dealing Journey
I have to take a detour into an Infernal Charm because everybody loves Infernals. Death-Dealing Journey basically converts the Dash Action to a Speed 0 Reflexive Action, allowing you to treat it exactly like a Move Action as described above. This means you can Dash and Guard/Aim, or Dash and Jump without penalizing your Jump with any flurry penalties.

The Jump Action
This is a Speed 5, DV -1 Miscellaneous Action with specific rules as its use. You may jump once per DV refresh, though the action writeup itself does not directly state this.

Unlike Move and Dash, you do not get a per-tick movement state. Instead, you get a single burst of movement, equal to [Strength+Athletics] minus appropriate penalties in yards, if you jump straight vertical, or double that horizontal.

Further, you can take a Speed 0 Reflexive Move action before or after a Jump, for a Running Leap or Leap and Combat Roll, etc. Same with creating a Dash+Jump Flurry. In fact, the fastest burst movement a character can achieve before magic is a Dash+Jump.

Tracking Movement Per Tick
As stated a couple times previously, you track and update movement decisions on a roughly per-tick basis. Further, characters are assumed to be acting simultaneously unless otherwise noted, so you have to make your decisions based on what everyone did the previous tick, not the current tick.

Getting into Range to Beat a [Expletive], or to Close a Door.
Having dug into the rules this much, I have come to the conclusion that Exalted's movement mechanics are intended to focus on surprisingly short ranges. Anywhere from 1-30 yards on average. I'm sure theres some fancy math or chart someone could compose about average 'Per Tick 'movement combinations, but the point is, Exalted cares about your Sudden Burst of Movement on your Acting Tick first, then your Total Movement Rate over the course of your Action.

I say this, because you have to be in range over the course of your Acting Tick in order to successfully execute a flurry against a given target, or perform any location-based action really. This is equally relevant to hitting someone in close combat, or reaching a location to take an action like closing a door.

If you can't reach an objective within the span of a single tick, any further actions you take are Inapplicable or Invalid, and thus terminated, not even rolled. The best example of this is in the flurry rules, where they describe that if you kill an opponent before finishing the flurry, the subsequent attacks are aborted. You spend no further motes and roll no more pools. The same applies to being in range and movement acitons.

Since you weren't in range over a single tick, you have to take multiple ticks to reach it. You can spend and decide your movement choices per tick.

Storyteller and Player advice - Not everyone needs to Move.
It sounds obvious when you look at it, but the easiest thing to keep a combat scene simple is to invent reasons for a given character to not move. Maybe they're hiding behind Cover, or they can't get out of a hazardous situation. Whatever reason, static characters and objects in a scene are vital landmarks in which everyone else can move relative to.

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION
Move and Dash both have a very important clause that I deliberately omitted for ease of writing. you do not need to roll to move or dash. Nor do you base your movement rates on the results of a roll.

The exception to this is Unstable Terrain. Such terrain can inflict penalties on movement speed, (making people slower), or force Athletics rolls to maintain your balance. Any of these things are designed to add texture to a battle and make it more exotic than merely comparing who has the bigger or smaller numbers.

Unstable Footing is described on Page 155 of 2e Corebook. It's actually very clever, because it clones the mechanics of Mounted Combat, replacing a mount's control rating with an Instability Rating.

Mechanically, it works like this: If one's Athletics is Equal to or Greater than the environment's Instability Rating, they automatically keep your balance. If Instability is Greater than Athletics you must either take a dedicated Miscellaneous [Dexterity+Athletics] Action to stay upright, at a difficulty equal to Instability.

So someone with Athletics 1 will have trouble with an Oil Slick (Instability 3), but an Athletics 5 person will stay rock steady on that same slick.

I can't summarize all the potential modifiers, but I cannot emphasize enough how important these kinds of rules are to the greater game. All the stories about dueling polar-bear dragons on the pitching deck of a ship in a blizzard with thunderbolts striking in the distance? They all come from these rules and these rules are what give those things teeth.

And no matter what options players get to ignore those teeth, it doesn't change the fact that they make scenes memorable.

Stick and Move
The long and the short of it it is, Exalted doesn't want you to sweat fiddly positional details when dealing with melee ranges. They want you at worst, to compare values and make a fair judgement of what would happen.

If two or more people have the same movement rates after all sources of penalties (wounds, armor, terrain), then they will never change position relative to each other unless one chooses to move faster, slower, towards or away from each other.

If one person has a higher movement rate, then it is safe to assume that any attacks made on them by slower characters are made at Penalty, baring stunts, charms or the Reach Tag. Don't apply lots of penalties though. Penalties are for things like "You're constantly lagging 5+ yards behind him." Not "You're 1-2 yards away."

Player: I move 5 yards per tick. How many ticks does it take for me to reach him?
Storyteller: He's 50 yards away and not moving. Maybe you should dash.
Player: Dashing then. I move 1 tick for 11 yards. He's now 39 yards away. Has he started moving?
Storyteller: He does start moving. He's 44 yards away.
Player: So he's moving 5 yards a tick, and I'm moving 11. I still outrun him by 6… Moving for my 2nd tick.
Storyteller: 44 minus 11 equals 33, plus 5 = 38 yards away.
Player: Dashing for my 3rd tick. 38 - 11 = 27, +5 means he's 32 feet away after his move.
Storyteller: That's right! You are gaining on him.
Player: But not very fast, goddamn.

Climbing and Swimming
This is actually pretty basic- unless you have Charms, tools, Mutations or other factors that modify your movement rates, climbing and swimming are your Movement or Dash speeds cut in half after all other modifiers.

In Closing
I think that covers the important parts of Moving. I will cover the rest of the Tick system when I get to Solar Awareness, I think.

A brief introduction to Solar Athletics
Wuxia. Mobility.

More seriously, Solar Athletics is the most easily understood ability solars get, at a player and borgstromantic level. It is a veritable checklist of effects that you see in wuxia and wire-fu martial arts films, and for good reason! It is a charm tree that is full of stunt fodder.

Solar Athletics is all about expressing the power of the human form through motion, poise and power.

Athletics the Ability
Athletics is best described as your Balance Skill, Effort Skill and Mobility skill. But, contrary to… logic, Athletics has nothing to do with lateral motion- walking, running, etc. (Move/Dash, respectively.) It gets magic to affect these traits, but you never see Athletics as part of the calculation.

Athletics handles things like balance checks, squeezing into tight spaces, climbing, jumping, and Feats of Strength. It's also a good indicator of your character's physical tone, but you aren't required to make it map 1:1 accuracy. Athletics 0 is 'wheezy asthmatic'. Athletics 1 is 'Skinny nerd'. 3 is 'Fit college athlete'. 5 is 'Olympian/Gymnast'.

And now on to the Charms!

Solar Athletics

Graceful Crane Stance
Athletics 1, Essence 2

This is probably my favorite charm in all of the 2nd edition Exalted core book.

As a Reflexive Charm, Graceful Crane Stance can be activated pretty much any time you have an open charm use, and it can be easily inserted into almost any combo. It also costs 3 motes, committed, and lasts for the scene.

Now, what Graceful Crane Stance does, is ensure that the Solar automatically succeeds on any valid roll to maintain their balance. 'Valid' in this context means Applicable- if for whatever reason you simply cannot get your balance, the charm won't work. But, the only place I can think of you not being able to get your balance is in a zero-gravity environment or similar.

So, a difficulty 1 balance check? Autopassed. Difficulty 10? Autopassed. Difficullty 'screw you die in a fire'?

Yep, autopassed.

The other function of this Charm is to change the terms of what you consider a stable platform. This is purely to enable the wuxia tropes of standing (and fighting) on gently swaying tree branches, wires strung across an alleyway, and so on. As long as Graceful Crane Stance is active, the Solar treats platforms as thin and strong as a human hair as if they were three feet wide and could support a thousand pounds.

Graceful Crane Stance is attainable, stuntable and evocative, to the point that it creates entire scenes and set pieces out of it's own existence. The point of this charm is to encourage the wild, crazy battlegrounds that make wuxia epic memorable. Duels on spinning water wheels. People dashing through bamboo thickets, leaping from leaf to leaf.

Of note is that you can use Graceful Crane Stance in exotic ways as well- you can stand on a leaf that's floating in the water. Standing on the water requires Feather Foot Style.

Now, the tactical advantage of Graceful Crane are incredible. Suddenly, you can't be knocked over. You aren't spending actions keeping your balance, you're never thrown down Prone unless you deliberately take a dive, etc.

Here's a good example of Graceful Crane Stance in it's utmost elegance. If you're fighting on thin ice, you can lead your unwary foes into the dangerous terrain, then break the ice. You can stand on the fragments and never risk falling in yourself, but your opponents will be dealing with the sudden shift in the scenario!

Monkey Leap Technique
Athletics 1, Essence 2

Weighing in at the same trait minimums at Graceful Crane Stance, Monkey Leap Technique is meant to be attainable, combo-able and usable. At it's core, Monkey Leap does two things as a 3m Reflexive Scenelong.

The first is that it doubles your jump distances.

For context, a str 2, Athletics 2 Heroic Mortal can jump 4 yards straight up ( or 2 yards if you're using the grittier rules suggestion from corebook. That's just, natural wuxia jumping. Trained athletes usually jump like 3-4 feet vertical from a standing start.

Exalted with Strength+Athletics 10 means you can jump 10 yards vertical from a standing start, before this Charm. Horizontal jumping distance is double your vertical, so if 10 yards up, 20 yards horizontal. With Monkey Leap, that becomes 20 yards straight up, and 40 yards horizontally.

Note that you can add your stunt bonuses to these distances too.

The other thing Monkey Leap does, is it lets you Jump as a Move (Reflexive on your acting tick) Action. You are still limited to one Move or/as Jump Action per DV refresh, but that is a big deal. Normally you have to take a miscellaneous action to jump in combat. Jump and Attack means a flurry. Monkey Leap now lets you focus entirely on attacking, and now jumping is a casual thing. Further, once jumping is Reflexive, it no longer suffers from Multiple Action Penalties.

Soaring Crane Leap
Athletics 4, Essence 2

Building off of Monkey Leap Technique, Soaring Crane Leap is a good illustration of logical growth in a charm tree. Jump more leads to Jump More.

In this case, Soaring Crane Leap is a Reflexive Charm that costs 2m. It lets you jump as a Move Action, just like Monkey Leap, and it multiplies your base jump distance by 5. That means at [Strength+Athletics] 10, you're jumping 50 yards straight up, or 100 yards horizontally. Note that this is a case where the multiplier applies after all other modifiers.

The important thing to note about Soaring Crane is that it does not stack its effects with Monkey Leap.

A Note on Multipliers: Exalted/Storyteller system basically says that multipliers that happen in the same 'step' or instant of a given roll merge together. So say, the Monkey Stone from corebook (Jump x2) and Soaring Crane (Jump x5). They multiply the same thing, so the x2 is added to the x5, giving you jump x6.

Mountain-Crossing Leap Technique
Athletics 5, Essence 4

Now we're talking. Here is a big, fantastically Solar effect weighing in at Essence 4. It also speaks clearly of the Solar's themes of human excellence and miraculous power without being a wibbly-wobbly undefined effect.

You jump real good. You jump so good, you can travel for miles. The base charm costs 10m+1 willpower, and is a Simple Charm. It creates a dramatic jumping action that lasts 5 minutes, and you jump [Essence x5] Miles per invocation. You go up in an arc, and you come down safely. if something interrupts you (by say shooting you), you'll start falling instead of jumping, so be careful!

Of interesting note, is that this charm is explicitly intended to combo with Soaring Crane Leap. The text of that charm says 'Multiplies the length of all jumps by 5'. Including the jump provided by Mountain Crossing Leap Technique, or custom jumping magic! This means you can jump 100 miles in 5 minutes for 12m+2wp.

This here is a great example of the transcendent miracles of Solar Magic- it's still recognizably a human action (jumping), but writ so large as to be unbelievable.

Foe-Vaulting Method
Athletics 5, Essence 2

Here is a quirky charm. Athletics, like Integrity, has a lot of 'odd-one out' magic and Charms, especially early on in 2nd Edition. Foe-Vaulting Method is 'Agility as Misdirection' encapsulated into magic.

Now it requires the highest ability rating of 5, which means only the most skilled people have it, or are willing to put it into a combo to activate as they need. Fortunately it only cost 1 mote. Since it's an essence 2 charm, it's scope in both affect and mechanics is very limited- it's a dice adder, adding the solar's [Athletics] rating to their rolls to re-establish surprise in combat.

5 dice is a big deal for stealth, and in combat, attempting to return to stealth for another surprise attack is actually at penalty or at difficulty, depending on other conditions, so this is actually a very handy, workmanlike effect. The charm itself specifies that it doesn't make you better at hiding, but it makes your movements more difficult to track by dint of skill.

Thunderbolt Attack Prana
Athletics 3, Essence 2

Here we have a very clunky Charm, but a devastatingly effective one. It is also a cross-ability Supplemental.

The charm itself costs 3m +1 willpower, which automatically tells us that it's not supposed to go into a Magical Flurry- you'd have to spend the 3m+1wp every single attack!

The other factor of TAP, is that it requires you to have a specific, athletic feat or stunt encoded into it. It's the superman punch, the jumping tiger knee, or the overhand castle-breaking slash. Regardless, it's something you are explicitly intended to evoke over and over.

Now, this is the charm that made me stop writing just about Charms and start in on the prior tangent of the movement essay, because I had to understand how this worked. Interesting bit of 1e trivia- this used to be split into two charms, where one was focused on you Moving, and the other on Holding Still. also in 1e, most Charms actually had resolution order mechanics, so they would declare "Charm A happens before roll B or Charm C" in some fashion or another.

TAP goes on to specify that if you gain any meaningful result from athletics actions during your signature move, they have to be included in the flurry…. This is going to be a centerpiece in my combo mechanics essay, I just know it.

So Signature move of Jumping Slash means you have a Jump+Attack Flurry. The charm supplements You pay 3m+1wp, and get 1 automatic success on the attack roll. If you successfully score a hit, Thunderbolt Attack Prana doubles your post-soak damage dice in Step 8.

A further note on Multipliers: Effects that create multipliers across separate traits or Steps in combat resolution have interactive and growing effects. Hungry Tiger Technique doubles post-DV Extra Successes (step 5-7), while Thunderbolt attack Prana doubles post-soak damage dice. (Step 8). In this example, all the doubling works separately and the increases in the earlier steps cascade down into the later steps.

I point this out simply to illustrate how persnickety these kinds of effects can get, and how they should be handled with care and caution. Imagine if in the above example, before Thunderbolt Attack Prana, I had a charm that doubled pre-soak raw damage?

Lightning Speed
Athletics 2, Essence 1

This is a 3m Reflexive Charm with a scene length duration. As an Essence 1 charm, Lighting Speed adds your Athletics rating to your Move and Dash speeds. As you recall from the earlier section of this Essay, adding even a little to your per-tick speed is a big help, both in traversing distances and the burst-movement trying to reach a given foe.

Further, this charm creates a new place for you to direct your Athletics Excellency dice, which this charm requires as a prerequisite anyway. It essentially evolves your Move/Dash into a Static Rating (though not divided in half), and you can add dice to as normal.

So you could for example, have Lightning Speed on, then pay 10m for another 10 yards on the given tick. Note that Lightning Speed doesn't 'hold' any extra motes you spend via Excellencies though, so you would have to pay each tick you move for the full effect. Instead, it's better to look at it like a good Burst Movement trick. 3rd Athletics Excellency is also very efficient here, allowing you to add 5 yards for 4 motes, instead of 10y for 10m.

As far as Solars go, this is very clearly a Human Excellence effect at Essence 1, a simple trick that increases your capabilities but has no major metaphysical flash.

Racing Hare Method
Athletics 5, Essence 2

Costing 5m+1wp, Racing Hare Method is the Dramatic Action Running Charm, the counterpoint to Mountain-Crossing Leap. A Simple Charm, it has a speed of [Dramatic Action] and a DV penalty of -6!

This charm is focused purely on overland travel, for lack of a better term. Unlike Solar Survival, which is about moving groups, Racing Hare Method is for moving the Solar Alone. Amusingly, you could even teach this charm to a character you have invested with Power-Awarding Prana, creating a mortal messenger!

Regardless, the crunch is as follows- after activating the Charm, you may travel [Stamina+Essence]x10 miles per hour for up to one hour. So Stamina 2 Essence 2 means you go 40 miles per activation. Further, the charm allows you to activate it again for 5m 0wp, if you're not acting again.

Further note that this charm doesn't specify your natural stamina, so bonuses from other magic, artifacts, sorcery and so on can improve your speed as well. The main reason this stacks up to Mountain Crossing Leap, is that the jumping charm has the chance of being interrupted and making you fall, which is very deadly. This charm you can be stopped, but you're not really going to take any extra damage beyond having a highly penalized DV. It is Combo-OK, so you can put a penalty negator in there as well.

1 Hour is the span of a lot of Dramatic Actions, as well,so you can in theory use them like really really big ticks, if you feel like being that granular.

As a Solar Charm, Racing Hare Method is again a mythic trope, of the great humans of our stories and culture doing impossible, amazing feats like running across the breadth of the known world. Because it's so specialized and largely non-combat, (dramatic action timescales), it is an Essence 2 charm.

Spider-Foot Style
Athletics 3, Essence 2

This is a 4m Reflexive scenelong in the vein of Graceful Crane Stance and the like. It allows the Solar to take Move and Dash Actions on vertical and inverted surfaces. However, it restricts her from stopping.

And remember How I went into realizing that movement is tracked per tick? This charm drives it home. You have declare a move/dash every tick or you'll fall. At Essence 4+, you can spend 1 mote per action (DV refresh) to stay standing in place on a vertical or inverted platform.

And here we have yet more Wuxia-Solar Aesthetic tropes. I need to stress wuxia aesthetic, the idea of the duel on impossible platforms and scenarios. It is the superhuman miracle of being so skilled as to run on the walls and duel across all sides of the rafters.

Feather-Foot Style
Athletics 4, Essence 2

Another 4m Reflexive Scenelong, Feather Foot Style is the logical extension of Graceful Crane Stance. The former is all about ensuring almost everything is a stable platform. Feather Foot Style is all about making nearly anything a stable platform.

Graceful Crane is 'Balance on blades of grass'. Feather foot is "Walk on water/liquid." or "anything that would move out from under your feet."

Like Spider-Foot Style, it points out that you can't stand on unstable terrain , even the kinds it allows. The charm describes standing still on say, water, as a Difficult 2 [Dexterity+Athletics] roll. Note that Graceful Crane Stance would let you handwave that roll away.

Further still, Feather-Foot Style doesn't actually protect you from whatever you're standing on. Boiling acid or burning lava will still hurt!

Eagle-Wing Style
Athletics 5, Essence 4

The miracle of personal flight is attained at Essence 4, but it is a limited, aesthetically distinctive flight. Unlike the freewheeling power of anime and such, Solars who fly do so with an implied connection to the world and ground.

The charm itself costs 4m+1wp, and is Reflexive. The Solar leaps into the air, tripling her Move and Dash rates, but the charm requires her to move at least half of her unmodified move per tick. Failure to do so means she lands and the charm ends.

Secondly, the character has to be within [Strength+Athletics]x3 yards of a surface. With a pool of 6 (the minimum for this Charm), that's 18 yards away from any surface. It's Wuxia flight, not Superman Flight. This charm is more about flying 'with the ground' for lack of a better term.

Now as much as I say that, the charm specifies the Solar must be in a specific pose, 'to direct the flows of Essence, the Solar must keep one hand extended before her'. Which could be construed as a superman pose. This more importantly prevents the use of 2-handed weapons like bows and Grand Daiklaves. They can use Thrown weapons and melee/unarmed attacks, however.

Doubling back to movement rules though, here's the thing about flight in Exalted. If you are fighting a flying opponent and all you can do is melee attacks, the only way you can hit them is if you wait for them to attack, and you attack on the same tick as them. The target of a dive-bomb attack can swing at no penalty, but allies close enough to swing (standing next to the original target perhaps) do so at -2 External Penalty, or -1 if they're using reach-tagged weapons like spears.

Eagle Wing Style and Solars is basically the logical progression of high mobility, of being able to push off from the ground indefinitely, constantly, without overthinking it. It is a focued, grand miracle at Essence 4.

Increasing Strength Exercise
Athletics 3, Essence 2

A holdover from 1st Edition- before the advent of Excellencies, there were charms like this for Dexterity and Stamina and all over the place.

You use this charm to increase your Strength rating for the scene, at a rate of 3m per dot of Strength. you're capped at [Essence] Strength gained this way. It counts as Dice from Charms as well, so if you add +2 Strength, any Strength-based roll already has 2 dice given to it from Charms. Str+Ath 10+2 from ISE means you can only add 8 more dice with 1st athletics.

The advantage of ISE over say, an Athletics Excellency, is that Strength shows up a lot more places- Damage, Feats of Strength, Jumping and so on. It's not the most efficient charm, but it is a holdover from 1st edition and it shows.

Whew. And that concludes Solar Athletics!

Next Time...

The next essay is going to cover the rest of the Tick System, Join Battle, Ambushes/Unexpected, and Solar Awareness!
 
Last edited:
Aleph said:
Keris isn't interesting because of what her top speed could be if she focused her entire build on it. She's interesting because of her mobility, and what she does with it - like how she loves dragging fights into the water, where penalties to her opponents are bonuses to her, so she's got a four-fold advantage over them, and how that shapes her behaviour into an amphibious water-demon who lurks in the watering hole waiting for you like a crocodile, and who makes entire communities afraid to set foot on the beach.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You could say that Keris is some sort of... ambush predator.

It's using the seas
Watching and waiting
Picking us off one by one

The skyship is close
But the Anathema's too fast
We won't make it
It's pointless to run

Talk, no more games.

I don't know what it was
The waters came alive

Go on!

It happened very fast
Not easy to describe

But you must have wounded it
Unless my eyes decieve
When the big man was killed
Its blood was on the beach

If it bleeds we can kill it...

:p
 
Last edited:
MJ12 Commando said:
You could say that Keris is some sort of... ambush predator.

It's using the seas
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Actually she also has Sprawling Marsh Indulgence and will get Hidden Predator Camouflage next session, both of which are Metagaos Charms that boost her stealth when using vegetation for cover. So, uh. She can literally do the Predator thing. Exactly as shown in the movie.

(also, sadly, she heals 1lhl per 2-die stunt with Kimbery's Mythos Exultant, so the fact that you've made her bleed doesn't mean she's still injured, because she can just run off and heal up like a nWerewolf)
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top