greensun
You shall all burn beneath my light!!!
War, going by the leak, is also one of better make charm trees, with the minimum dice tricks.
General Exalted Thread
Giygas
Cutest Sawk i could find. Lucario is a nice extra.
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... Well, thank you!
I knew that my vague mind guidelines about things to fix in the charmset lacked things, and you exposed a lot of them!
Weeee the fixing loom on the horizon: soon nothing will be unfixed. Nothing.
Now i will address your points:
That part was the hated dicetrick, so your analysis and reaction is the same as mine: the dicetrick is the wrost part of the charm, not the better.
Everytime, but i just realized that that part of the charm is open to interpetation. Will probably cut the intimidating part, and leave it on only for blablantly suprenatural opponents.(So a random normal looking exalted not using anything except personal motes will not trigger it, but most other supernatural beings will.)
I actually realized that it was badly written shortly before you wrote your post. WIll probably copy what you did, excising the falling down then up thing.(Which i believe was meant to trigger things that trigger when you fall, if such things exist.)
???
This isn't part of salty dog method? It is probably another Sail charm that you accidentally got mixed inside, so these are still valid observations.
I didn't thought about the implications of the last part of the charm. Thank you for enlightnening me, both for the last part, and also for the reliance on the natural language.
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Ah. Well, that's somewhat disappointing, if it was canon, it would be really important in the quest you're getting the charms from, because the Yozi would be aware of it, and it would make Infernals with access to his charms more important.
AkatsukiL13
An Enlightened Mind
- Location
- New Copernicus Station
Good! Those two pieces are utterly appalling.
Though I will give the benefit of the double with that Chejop piece as only stolen piece I recognized was the Medieval 2 Total War piece, partly because I am a Total War fan and partly because it was so out of place for Exalted.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Pretty sure it's all the time for the fear bit. It's supposed to be the 'I'm a veteran sailor of these eldritch seas, and I've seen some s***.'
The second one I interpreted as being about recovering your balance so fast you don't even need an action, but yes, if you fell while on a tightrope you hit the ground below. You just instantly recover your feet. It's a lot more limited then 'always keep your balance,' and doesn't protect you from lots of bad consequences, but means if your on a roiling deck, you can move around without spending all your time getting back up.
greensun
You shall all burn beneath my light!!!
Yeah, the athletics charms are better for keeping your balance, but this one has the advantage that it's permanent.
Well, unless the 'tightrope' is the rigging of a ship, and dropping would have you hit the ocean instead of the deck.
Not quite. See, HGD has three different modes of operation:
Spend 4 motes plus initiative to remove successes from a decisive attack. This one only works on decisive attacks.
Spend 4 motes to block an otherwise-unblockable attack. This doesn't let you block anything that isn't an attack, it only removes the "unblockable" trait. (Because of the Decisive-only tag, it still only works on decisive attacks, but that's probably an oversight; it seems like it should work on withering attacks, too). This version of the charm can't block anything that doesn't have an attack roll, because in the absence of a "this always works" or similar, it's mechanically nonsensical. It explicitly works on "the burning curses of Kimbery", but that just means that they're unblockable attacks.
Spend 4 motes 1 willpower to automatically block something that does uncountable damage. This is the version that always works and explicitly works on erupting volcanoes, but it explicitly only works on uncountable damage.
Only one of these options works on non-attack damage, and it doesn't work on countable damage.
Reading the charm as written, that's the only possible interpretation. It protects against uncountable damage, including falls from a great height. If you look at the falling damage, it lists countable amounts of damage. How can we resolve this contradiction? Well, the only thing that makes sense is that for a really really long fall, the damage becomes uncountable, at which point AST becomes applicable.
More importantly, Graceful Crane Stance allows you to balance on things that would otherwise snap under your weight, or otherwise be completely impossible to balance on.
So I typed up a quick charm for a quest. It's a minion-maker that expands off a charmtree that lets you create Wyld zones. I'd like some critique if you've got the time for it.
Calling Playwright's Assistants
Cost: 10 motes, 1 willpower
Mins: Essence 3
Repurchases: Essence 4
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Keywords: Shaping, Obvious, Pantheon
Prerequisite Charms: Sheltering the Troupe
A playwright may produce a masterpiece to awe and terrify the audience, but how is he to perform without stagehands? Weaving together loose streams of essence from a Wyld zone, the Infernal creates a spirit of the First Circle to assist him. The demon begins with an intimacy of loyalty towards the Infernal, but is not obligated to follow his commands. If the spirit is a unique creation, the player should work with the Storyteller to ensure it is of appropriate strength. However, the demon is bound to the stage where it was born; should it leave the Wyld zone (or should the Wyld zone be terminated), it is immediately banished to Malfeas as if targeted by emerald-circle banishment. Repurchase at Essence 4 strengthens the bond between actor and director, allowing the demon to follow the Infernal out into the world.
Cost: 10 motes, 1 willpower
Mins: Essence 3
Repurchases: Essence 4
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Keywords: Shaping, Obvious, Pantheon
Prerequisite Charms: Sheltering the Troupe
A playwright may produce a masterpiece to awe and terrify the audience, but how is he to perform without stagehands? Weaving together loose streams of essence from a Wyld zone, the Infernal creates a spirit of the First Circle to assist him. The demon begins with an intimacy of loyalty towards the Infernal, but is not obligated to follow his commands. If the spirit is a unique creation, the player should work with the Storyteller to ensure it is of appropriate strength. However, the demon is bound to the stage where it was born; should it leave the Wyld zone (or should the Wyld zone be terminated), it is immediately banished to Malfeas as if targeted by emerald-circle banishment. Repurchase at Essence 4 strengthens the bond between actor and director, allowing the demon to follow the Infernal out into the world.
greensun
You shall all burn beneath my light!!!
The limitation set by the Wyld zone and the lack of ensured loyalty makes this charm out to be weaker version of the Infernal's Wyld shaping charm. My suggestion would be to look at Kimbery's own demon summoning charm.
Cost: 20m
Mins: Essence 2
Type: Simple (Speed 5, DV -4)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Servitude, Sorcerous, Sea, Touch
Duration: One month
Prerequisite Charms: Tidal Renewal Discipline
Gaia conceived the element of water, but Kimbery hoarded it in one place to fill the yawning abyss of the West with glorious depths. Accordingly, all things that live in the sea should rightly call her Great Mother.
To use this Charm, the Infernal touches a sea in Creation or the Wyld and entreats the depths in Old Realm, necessitating she know the language and make a successful prayer roll (target number -1 if submerged). Her words spread as an invisible ripple through the cosmos, entreating a monster to rise and serve the will of Kimbery through her. The summoned beast finds and enters a secret current between seas, arriving (10 – Essence) minutes later. While the Charm remains active, the monster is enchanted as follows:
• It must obey the Infernal like a bound demon without regard for its own safety. This Servitude can't be broken by spending Willpower.
• It understands all commands the Infernal speaks to it in Old Realm and can execute those commands as though it had minimum Intelligence 2.
• The Infernal can command it at a distance via successful prayers as though the beast knew First Kimbery Excellency.
Any natural animal that lives in the sea of the Wyld or Creation is a valid target of this Charm; separate activations can bind multiple creatures. With Essence 3+, the Infernal may also summon natural animals warped by Desecration-based mutations. The player selects desired mutations that can't encompass more positive mutation points than (the Infernal's [Willpower + Essence]) + (the creature's total number of negative mutation points). The creature is not changed by summoning; rather, it is a victim of the pollution Kimbery and the ruin of the Lintha Empire left in Creation after the Primordial War.
With repurchase at Essence 3+, the warlock can entreat the seas of Creation or the Wyld at night (or the seas of the Demon Realm at any time), summoning an unbound member of any predominantly aquatic First Circle demon race (but not a specific demon) from a sea in any realm of existence. The Charm enslaves these demons normally, but is preempted by spells that summon or bind enchanted demons.
A third purchase at Essence 5+ allows the summoning of any specific aquatic Primordial behemoth smaller than a geographic entity (i.e. no Lintha Ng Oroo). This follows the timing and location restrictions for First Circle demon summoning. The Charm only brings the behemoth to the warlock and doesn't grant control unless the warlock's Essence is greater than its. If other creatures smaller than the behemoth are in physical contact with it when it answers the summons, they are carried along. Behemoths are unique and powerful; most are massive, nigh-immortal entities capable of challenging Celestial Exalted.
Mins: Essence 2
Type: Simple (Speed 5, DV -4)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Servitude, Sorcerous, Sea, Touch
Duration: One month
Prerequisite Charms: Tidal Renewal Discipline
Gaia conceived the element of water, but Kimbery hoarded it in one place to fill the yawning abyss of the West with glorious depths. Accordingly, all things that live in the sea should rightly call her Great Mother.
To use this Charm, the Infernal touches a sea in Creation or the Wyld and entreats the depths in Old Realm, necessitating she know the language and make a successful prayer roll (target number -1 if submerged). Her words spread as an invisible ripple through the cosmos, entreating a monster to rise and serve the will of Kimbery through her. The summoned beast finds and enters a secret current between seas, arriving (10 – Essence) minutes later. While the Charm remains active, the monster is enchanted as follows:
• It must obey the Infernal like a bound demon without regard for its own safety. This Servitude can't be broken by spending Willpower.
• It understands all commands the Infernal speaks to it in Old Realm and can execute those commands as though it had minimum Intelligence 2.
• The Infernal can command it at a distance via successful prayers as though the beast knew First Kimbery Excellency.
Any natural animal that lives in the sea of the Wyld or Creation is a valid target of this Charm; separate activations can bind multiple creatures. With Essence 3+, the Infernal may also summon natural animals warped by Desecration-based mutations. The player selects desired mutations that can't encompass more positive mutation points than (the Infernal's [Willpower + Essence]) + (the creature's total number of negative mutation points). The creature is not changed by summoning; rather, it is a victim of the pollution Kimbery and the ruin of the Lintha Empire left in Creation after the Primordial War.
With repurchase at Essence 3+, the warlock can entreat the seas of Creation or the Wyld at night (or the seas of the Demon Realm at any time), summoning an unbound member of any predominantly aquatic First Circle demon race (but not a specific demon) from a sea in any realm of existence. The Charm enslaves these demons normally, but is preempted by spells that summon or bind enchanted demons.
A third purchase at Essence 5+ allows the summoning of any specific aquatic Primordial behemoth smaller than a geographic entity (i.e. no Lintha Ng Oroo). This follows the timing and location restrictions for First Circle demon summoning. The Charm only brings the behemoth to the warlock and doesn't grant control unless the warlock's Essence is greater than its. If other creatures smaller than the behemoth are in physical contact with it when it answers the summons, they are carried along. Behemoths are unique and powerful; most are massive, nigh-immortal entities capable of challenging Celestial Exalted.
Now since the charm is based on Oramus, you swap out the ocean with wyld zones and work from there. So a demon is bound as if it were summoned and it also has intimacy of loyalty towards the one who created it. Now, the advantage of this charm over Kimbery's is that you are explicitly allowed to create demons as twisted as your imagination and that you are not restricted to aquatic demons.
Also, at essence 5 you can summon kaji, though without any control unless you have higher essence. So use this as a basis for what you are designing in terms of demon summoning/ creating charms. A Green Sun Prince is a peer of Hell, they should have the strongest demon based effects in the game.
- Location
- Cyberspace
So, the tree I always started my attempted to revamp the 2e charm system with and that I've always had a fondness for is Medicine. So... let's look at 3rd edition's Solar Medicine tree.
It's... cluttered. Very cluttered. Twenty-three charms, in fact.
There's some rather interesting ideas in there that weren't in previous editions, but it needs condensation.
For example:
Ailment-Rectifying Method ==> Boost a patient's next resistance roll by successes on an (Intelligence + Medicine) roll while tending as normal.
===> Can fight or even cure supernatural diseases, up to an including the Great Contagion.
Plague-Banishing Incitation ==> If at least double max (Stamina, Resistance) of patient successes are rolled by #1, ends the current disease interval and double successes added by #1.
===> A success by the patient means the disease has run its course.
===> Gain a Willpower (cancel the charm cost) if the patient was going to die from the disease.
Plague-Banishing Incitation can be cleanly made into an upgrade of Ailment-Rectifying Method - either a passive booster at higher Essence/Medicine, a second purchase or an upgrade charm. It literally does nothing without the first charm. Heck, you can just tack it on as "if you generate at least X successes, you can pay a Willpower to force the current interval to finish and apply all successes instead of half. If the patient succeeds, the disease is over. If the disease would've been fatal, gain the Willpower back."
I feel like I could probably turn it into a ten-charm set that'd be cleaner and easier to parse, to be honest.
It's... cluttered. Very cluttered. Twenty-three charms, in fact.
There's some rather interesting ideas in there that weren't in previous editions, but it needs condensation.
For example:
Ailment-Rectifying Method ==> Boost a patient's next resistance roll by successes on an (Intelligence + Medicine) roll while tending as normal.
===> Can fight or even cure supernatural diseases, up to an including the Great Contagion.
Plague-Banishing Incitation ==> If at least double max (Stamina, Resistance) of patient successes are rolled by #1, ends the current disease interval and double successes added by #1.
===> A success by the patient means the disease has run its course.
===> Gain a Willpower (cancel the charm cost) if the patient was going to die from the disease.
Plague-Banishing Incitation can be cleanly made into an upgrade of Ailment-Rectifying Method - either a passive booster at higher Essence/Medicine, a second purchase or an upgrade charm. It literally does nothing without the first charm. Heck, you can just tack it on as "if you generate at least X successes, you can pay a Willpower to force the current interval to finish and apply all successes instead of half. If the patient succeeds, the disease is over. If the disease would've been fatal, gain the Willpower back."
I feel like I could probably turn it into a ten-charm set that'd be cleaner and easier to parse, to be honest.
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HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
It only applies to Stellars, and (for anyone but the Stellar themselves) it would literally be several orders of magnitude easier to kill them/stick them in a Restraining Bolt - you'd have to affect every star. I'd be interested to know what your issue is with losing Exaltations, though. If I had to guess, it'd have something to do with Soul Damage? (Which is an idea I find incredibly disturbing, myself.)
What does it mean, by the way?
Yeah, I know, I just keep reading it as "Side Real", so I figured I'd change it.
Can Alchemicals hotswap their Charms midcombat? Also, I wasn't thinking constellations, but the individual stars themselves. Making the Stellars be incarnations of possible constellations does have merit though. Thanks.
Even if they were all temporary, there's nothing to say their creators could turn them off. Cease providing upgrades, perhaps, but not turn them off.
Hmm. Essence recovery for Stunting, to me, doesn't normally make a whole lot of sense. With the Stellars, there's a ready made justification for "I do cool things, and get more power to do them with". Perhaps... could it be a part of the Exaltation package that got carried over? It should be much more important for Stellars, certainly.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
Setting aside that what you are talking about is 'Exalted' only in the loosest sense of the term...
The fact that Exaltations are completely imperishable and undamageable is a very important setting element.
If you're out of Essence, it doesn't matter what Charms you have; you die. The whole "They only have 4-5 charms at a time" thing is insane in the first place (seriously, that's half a chargen Solar's total, that is basically no Charms at all), and the fact that they change them when they run out of motes doesn't really matter in a fight.
This is how all people work in Exalted. When you do cool things, you get more motes. That's how Exalted, as a setting, works.
Just to springboard off this list, Ex3 Salty Dog Method is also a bad example of Charm design because it is so unfocused in its purpose, something which pops up a lot in post-Infernals Charm design.
Because see, the original intent behind an exception-based powerset like Charms is that you are working with One codified exception at a time for the sake of rules-clarity and avoiding memory issues or tangled results. Each Charm has a Name and an Identity to it, like "Accuracy increaser," or "Jump further," which becomes diluted as more effects are thrown into the pile. Martial Arts Forms got around this with the understanding you would only ever have one of them active at once, and therefore a small handful of thematic bonuses were acceptable.
As an example, imagine you have eight conditional +1 bonuses which you need to apply to every roll you make, and you make several rolls over the course of the scene. Now there is an intense math-burden placed on the player to mentally manage each of these conditionals per-roll, which is why tools like Excellencies were developed. Because even on the small-scale, how many times does one Hugely powerful and meaningful effect take precedence over another, like the +1 success from Thunderbolt Attack Prana compared to straight-up doubling attack damage? Now multiply that across every "package" Charm with an identity of "make you generally better at X in these niche ways."
This gets squirrelier as the wordings get looser, because a Charm like Salty Dog wants you to mentally devote mental space to not just remembering all its distinct and unrelated effects, but the logical interpretations of those effects. If a Charm says "double your damage" instead of "double attack damage," does that apply to indirect damage like being on fire? Issues like this were rife during 1e and no one really enjoyed stopping a scene to puzzle out what happens when Mechanic A hits Mechanic B, when the two are supposedly working inside the same framework but never reference a common ground.
That we've returned to that point is a fairly sad state of affairs.
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
A reaction to something either so baffling or so stupid that one is at a loss for words.
If they took Man-Machine Weaving Engine and God-Machine Weaving Engine, and the right protocols.
You could perhaps, give them a small common charmset, and then have slots for destinies, which come with a moderate sized charmset. For instance, a Stellar might use three constellations to craft the destiny of Pirate Admiral, granting themselves Sail, War, and Presence in addition to the core charmset.
The Doylist explanation is that mechanical rewards for describing actions in detail encourages players to do so and become invested in the narrative. It is to encourage "I leap over the table without rattling the dishes and lunge at the Legionnaire with my knife as golden essence swirls in my wake." instead of "I spend four motes from peripheral for second melee excellency and hit them with my sword." The Watsonian explanation is that the Pattern Spiders love quality entertainment, and nudge the strands of Fate on the Loom.
- Location
- The end of all things
It really isn't, and it never has been in any edition. The distinction between theoretically imperishable and practically imperishable is essentially meaningless. Further, that which cannot be destroyed can be forever imprisoned or merely chained and neutered. The closest we got was in 2e, and even then we had Dragon-Blooded, Alchemicals, and mutilated and imprisoned Solars.
Which is why stunts don't give essence in the Underworld or Malfeas. Oh, wait, they do. Stunting represents epic heroism, nothing more and nothing less.
Mote recovery from stunting is so essential to the setting that that they threw it out entirely in 3e.
My personnel interpretation was that the inherent nature of the Wyld acted to support and produce interesting stories. The consequence of this is that everything that is created from components of the Wyld ( Essentially everything) also acts to subtly support interesting stories. Stunts are capable of providing small benefits without needing an outside because things that create an interesting short story or act to improve a story are supported on a fundamental level by all of existence.
So, I'm out of town at the moment and don't have a copy of the text in front of me, but my problem with that reading is that if you get hit by, say, Heaven Thunder Hammer the falling damage from that is inflicted on you as part of the attack, right? So, you'd read Adamant Skin Technique as applicable there but not to a normal fall?
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
I'm reasonably certain that's Naruto behind her.
I remember Holden saying that he wanted to move away from legalistic writing. The problem is that legal writing developed specifically because it's intended to define a self-contained set of rules and words in a realm where this stuff actually may have life-altering ramifications, which is why lawyers do it and get paid tons to do it. Yes, people can be bad at legal writing and that might be a reason to not do it, but honestly there's probably enough starving law school graduates who can do it that this isn't an excuse anymore.
Basically, legalistic writing and the way well-written contracts make sure everything is explicit and unambiguous exist because when we get our 'GMs' (judges) to 'houserule' (declare an interpretation of) our rules, there is a very good chance the result will cost someone millions of dollars. It's designed to minimize potential ambiguity and save space-and it works.
I'm increasingly thinking that the crunchier the game, the more it should look like a legal document with everything clearly defined and delineated.
What I'd suggest and was sort of using behind the scenes for Panopticon is a crafting system with no extended rolls. You roll once, and if you don't get enough successes to meet a fairly high threshold, it creates Problems that you have to solve via adventure-i.e. it's a plot hook generator. That could also work for bureaucracy/occult/etc. This is especially given that you're already rejecting simulationist process-based systems in other places.
It's basically the Apocalypse World system as adapted to White Wolf games. For example:
Some Random Rules Text I Threw Up In Five Minutes said:
Etc etc.
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- Location
- Gladstone, OR
I remember Holden saying that he wanted to move away from legalistic writing. The problem is that legal writing developed specifically because it's intended to define a self-contained set of rules and words in a realm where this stuff actually may have life-altering ramifications, which is why lawyers do it and get paid tons to do it. Yes, people can be bad at legal writing, but honestly there's probably enough starving law school graduates who can do it that this isn't an excuse anymore.
Yeah, as I was tearing apart Salty Dog Method in response to @Giygas's I realized it pretty clearly as Holden and co wanting to write things in a 'natural language' sort of way. Which, used appropriately can be effective!
This was not used effectively.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Love the idea, @MJ12 Commando , but I'm not sure I got across what I actually meant by "sit in a corner syndrome."
By which I mean the tendency for WW games to be: "X situation, let the X focused guy handle it, the rest of us will sit in a corner and knit/catch up on reading/do crossword puzzles"
Especially bad with subsystems that make you take a lot of charms to function, meaning you don't have charms to cover other things, because you have limited XP.
Specialization is good, but super-specialization being optimal is... Well, it creates issues of half the people at the table turning out half the time.
By which I mean the tendency for WW games to be: "X situation, let the X focused guy handle it, the rest of us will sit in a corner and knit/catch up on reading/do crossword puzzles"
Especially bad with subsystems that make you take a lot of charms to function, meaning you don't have charms to cover other things, because you have limited XP.
Specialization is good, but super-specialization being optimal is... Well, it creates issues of half the people at the table turning out half the time.
I edited the post, but I'd say that there are two rules in question here. I'd call one of them the @Jon Chung rule and the other one the Corollary to the Jon Chung Rule.
The @Jon Chung Rule: Assume any and all ambiguities in a roleplaying game's ruleset will be interpreted in the most damaging reasonable fashion to enjoyable gameplay by a significant and loud minority of players.
And the Corollary: As the number of rules and rules interactions in a game increases, the possibility that you will need to adopt legal contract drafting techniques to make the game mechanically tight approaches 1.
I see. The problem here is that you don't actually have much incentive to have backups because of how the roll system is designed, despite how in real life it doesn't work like that. In real life, for example, Phoenix Wright can't exist without a team of lesser skilled but still moderately competent guys backing him up. Nobel Prize winners win the Nobel Prize because of hordes of grad students helping them. And moreover, teamwork tends to be just 'add some dice to the main guy' somehow.
You'd have to rethink how teamwork works on a fundamental level to cure this problem. For example, having multiple infiltrators taking different routes makes it more likely that one of them will happen onto a weak point, having multiple researchers reduces the time it takes to go through everything, and even having someone with effectively 1 dot in the skill as a backup can be hugely useful IRL.