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General Exalted Thread

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Drak4806 said:
Can someone tell me how to add charms to Anathema? I want to add some of the ones linked here earlier.
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If you want to add the ones that have already been typed up, such as the ones I've done, then all you need to do is create a "custom" folder in your Anathema\repository folder. Filepath should be Anathema\repository\custom.

Then download the files from the sharing site. (Follow the link) Be sure to grab the .xml files and the .properties file. Drop both files directly into the custom folder.

Start Anathema and enjoy your new charms!

Typing up your own custom charms is a little more work and involves basic coding, but it's easy to pick up and kinda fun to do.

In the "custom" folder, create a new text document, then change the .txt to .xml. Don't worry about instability, it'll handle just fine. Anathema uses .xml files to provide its charm data.

Then create another text document, but change the .txt to .properties. This is where you'll define the charm: Give it its full name, plus the description.

Once you've got that done, you're ready to start coding!

Here's the official tutorial, with a small example.

How to create custom charms and spells · anathema/anathema Wiki · GitHub

There's a bunch of little pointers that it doesn't cover, so feel free to PM me if you need more help, or ask the devs themselves at their google group (responses may take some time):

Google Groups
 
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Here's some vague thoughts on different possible Ability schemes:

First, a 3x8 by P/S/M version a bit inspired by nWoD. Not substantially more or less Abilities, but rearranged and rejiggered. Also, I can't figure out a better word for "Travel", but it'd be kind of Sail/Drive (in modern shards)/the-ability-you-use-on-a-yeddim-because-they're-too-big-for-Ride/more multipurpose - theoretically the Ability that a caravan master would use, for example (along with Survival and Bureaucracy).
Code: 
Athletics    Animal Ken     Awareness
Larceny      Bureaucracy    Craft
Melee        Expression     Integrity
Ranged       Intimidation   Investigation
Resistance   Persuasion     Lore
Stealth      Socialize      Medicine
Survival     Subterfuge     Occult
Unarmed      War            Travel

Second, a stripped-down 5x3 version based on Caste.
Code: 
Melee    Presence   Craft      Athletics    Bureaucracy
Ranged   Resolve    Lore       Awareness    Socialize
War      Survival   Medicine   Subterfuge   Travel
 
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azoicennead said:
Lighting it on fire was kind of just adding insult to injury, though. I think it was something like a 1000-man army (Size 5, the largest in the leak), and one attack burned it down to Size 1 or 0 (i.e. something you don't need to model with a battlegroup).
And then there's the rout check, which would have been at something like Difficulty 4 or 5. Just in case there were any survivors that weren't on fire.
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The army you used was of a rather low quality. You really should try rerunning those numbers with better quality troops or even Tiger Warriors. Then add a few minor command bonuses and basic anti-archer tactics unconstrained by the threat of cavalry. I think you'll find things more than a bit harder this way.

For extra fun, the next army you fight is accompanied by the Solar general himself. Helpful hint: You'll have to do at least 85 levels of damage to destroy it. Without orders, it would attack with 16 dice and have a defense of 7. Sustainable order actions would give it an average of 11 additional dice to all actions for a turn. In a pinch, the Solar could add 20 dice.

That's... substantially nastier than I thought. Really, the best approach here is clearly to simply kill the general. Or run away. That's probably much safer.

azoicennead said:
This is where I point out that the attack can be done from a mile away.
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It can be, but when the army has an average of ~22 successes on their strategic maneuver roll it's... rather unlikely that it will be. A difference of 6 successes is enough to ambush an enemy and encircle them, leveling all kinds of hideous penalties. With 10+ they can execute plan "Fight in the shade!"
 
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Quick question for folks. What situations would you expect Socialize to be usable in? Obviously stuff like "the Satrap's court" or "a masquerade ball" but what else? Would a business meeting be formal enough to work?
 
Peanuckle said:
If you want to add the ones that have already been typed up, such as the ones I've done, then all you need to do is create a "custom" folder in your Anathema\repository folder. Filepath should be Anathema\repository\custom.

Then download the files from the sharing site. (Follow the link) Be sure to grab the .xml files and the .properties file. Drop both files directly into the custom folder.

Start Anathema and enjoy your new charms!

Typing up your own custom charms is a little more work and involves basic coding, but it's easy to pick up and kinda fun to do.

In the "custom" folder, create a new text document, then change the .txt to .xml. Don't worry about instability, it'll handle just fine. Anathema uses .xml files to provide its charm data.

Then create another text document, but change the .txt to .properties. This is where you'll define the charm: Give it its full name, plus the description.

Once you've got that done, you're ready to start coding!

Here's the official tutorial, with a small example.

How to create custom charms and spells · anathema/anathema Wiki · GitHub

There's a bunch of little pointers that it doesn't cover, so feel free to PM me if you need more help, or ask the devs themselves at their google group (responses may take some time):

Google Groups
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I wanted to add the Hegra charms from here.
Conjured Blade said:
You can find some here.

2014 - [The Neverwar] [The Neverwar] Approved Yozi Trees. | RpNation.com - Best Roleplay Forum
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Anasurimbor said:
-snip-
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You seem to be operating under the assumption that was supposed to represent an elite army of some kind.
It wasn't. It was a bunch of average soldiers.
Killed from an hour's march away, in a single attack unexpected attack.

This is not a character built to fight alone against an army led by another Solar. Hell, it's not even a character really built. It's a partial set of stats meant to demonstrate a specific feat with Solar Archery.

Otherwise I could get into counter-tactics beyond "you have to quick-march for an hour to get to where I was". Like having Stealth. And Survival. And using your hour of lead time to lead the army into an area you've saturated with traps while picking off anyone bringing order to the troops.
 
Roadie said:
Because absolutely nothing about the Ability is intended to be limited to formal situations.
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I think I may be a bit hyperfocused on the 3E leak. I should have specified that I was looking for a 3E answer. In the leak the description of Socialize is:
Socialize is a character's understanding of the social context in which she acts, encompassing both knowledge of decorum and etiquette as well as how to use them to one's advantage in persuasion or manipulation. In formal social situations such as an aristocratic court or a ritualized ceremony, a character can use Socialize to influence the thoughts and feelings of other characters with social actions. Socialize is also used both to read the emotional tells or body language of other characters to discern their inner thoughts, and to conceal such tells on one's self, contributing to a character's Guile rating.
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To me, that seems rather limiting. In 2E, it is definitely a lot looser.
 
All social interaction is mediated through decorum and etiquette, although it looks different in different places. There are always faux pas to be made, flattery to be executed appropriately, systems of convention to be learned, observed, even violated strategically.

Which is to say that, myself, I would be inclined to interpret it broadly and disregard the 'formal' part, but I recognize this is explicitly ignoring the description as written, and therefore may not be of much help to you specifically.

EDIT: That said, if you want to hew a little closer to the rules without making Socialize strictly an upper-class investment, then I would in general call for the use of Socialize in situations where the character is unfamiliar with those conventions to mitigate that unfamiliarity, and in situations where the character is specifically stunting about acting in accordance with - or against - local convention. This latter is much easier to do in some situations than others - informal conversation makes it quite difficult, but meeting figures with power over you in one way or another can often bring it into play.
 
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Bursting Eagerness Soul said:
I think I may be a bit hyperfocused on the 3E leak. I should have specified that I was looking for a 3E answer. In the leak the description of Socialize is:

To me, that seems rather limiting. In 2E, it is definitely a lot looser.
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Only one sentence seems to limit things to formal settings. Social rules exist outside of formal settings, and people still give emotional tells and have body language in relaxed settings.
 
Bursting Eagerness Soul said:
I think I may be a bit hyperfocused on the 3E leak. I should have specified that I was looking for a 3E answer. In the leak the description of Socialize is:

To me, that seems rather limiting. In 2E, it is definitely a lot looser.
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Guile score and Read Intentions rolls both use Socialize, with no "only in a formal setting" caveat. So Socialize is usable in any situation where you try to figure out what someone wants or avoid them doing the same to you.
 
Sorry that I keep narrowing this. I had a specific scenario in mind when I first posted. I'm specifically looking for what scenarios you would allow Socialize to be used to influence someone, not just reading them or being unreadable. I think that @Random Entity's answer is the closest to what I was trying to ask.
 
Jon Chung said:
And this is why you write game rules like technical manuals, people.
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I think the funniest thing is that they could have had these charms behave differently when targeting battle groups, but instead chose to give the great nonanswer of "this might not make sense, so if the ST decides on it..." This isn't even an edge case rule, like the Solar Counterattack question of "I Solar Counterattack an enemy who successfully hits me and as a result, I kill him. Does he deal damage?" This is "if I target a fairly common type of target, does this charm work at all or does it waste my motes for no reason?"
 
Bursting Eagerness Soul said:
Quick question for folks. What situations would you expect Socialize to be usable in? Obviously stuff like "the Satrap's court" or "a masquerade ball" but what else? Would a business meeting be formal enough to work?
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2e or 3e?
In 2e, you cannot use Socialize for Social Attacks at all (except with some charms). It is used for the following tasks:
  • Lying or otherwise concealing intent.
  • Reading motivations, emotions etc. of others (but apparently not detecting lies).
  • Allowing you to act in a social manner with a full dicepool while in command of a Social Unit.
  • Executing social Surprise Attacks, Reestablishing Surprise etc.
  • Organizing social Coordinated Attacks.

Bursting Eagerness Soul said:
I think I may be a bit hyperfocused on the 3E leak. I should have specified that I was looking for a 3E answer. In the leak the description of Socialize is:

To me, that seems rather limiting. In 2E, it is definitely a lot looser.
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Did the other uses I listed (that are found throughout the book) get removed throughout 3e? What is used for surprised and coordinated attacks in 3e?
 
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So hearkening back to the previous discussion about the art in the book...

Why does the art for the 'simple' artifact weapons so much cooler than that of the artifacts with evocations? Seriously, Black Wind is just a dark red rounded boomerang, while the Skycutter is a crescent blade that has a design that looks vaguely like a bow?
 
Bursting Eagerness Soul said:
What would you think of having teammates' threshold successes add an equal number of dice to the main actor's dicepool? This would go well with turning dice over 10 into successes.
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Works nice when you only have two people, but needs to have diminishing returns for too many helpers. Perhaps use the best roll result from all the helpers.

Realistically, one would need to have different helper usefulness ratios for different tasks, but this is Exalted, so we shouldn't come up with multi-storey systems for such quick events as someone giving an encouraging nudge or a helpful hint before rolling to [whatever].
 
Anasurimbor said:
It may, but you should also consider that Lore is no longer nearly so broad for a particular character. A general with Lore(warfare) will know very different things than a scholar with Lore(mathematics). This is represented by a higher difficulty for topics outside your area of expertise. This is a huge deal for a mortal, but not nearly so daunting for a Solar. Regardless, Prophet of Seventeen Cycles builds on an understanding of history and physical law, which is very solidly an application of Lore.
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Wait, they now have skill bloat in Exalted . . ?
And that's while I was looking for ways to get rid of skill bloat in GURPS . . .
OK, I know it's a legit design choice, it just feels very out of place in Exalted.
 
Eukie said:
I don't really see a system that accidentally encourages players to make mechanically similar characters as a significant problem in of itself. It may not be the most desirable state, since it doesn't encourage attribute-diversity in characters, but it doesn't result in an outside-the-game situation where a player is basically disconnected from the game because their character has no meaningful way to interact with the problem/scene. The sit-in-a-corner problem, or as I like to call it, the Decker/Rigger Problem, harms the players in trying to play the game. The One True Build problem (here being that IQ-geniuses are the best), meanwhile, just makes large parts of the system superfluous[1].

[1] It also creates the possibility that someone walks into a character-creating trap and ends up with a character strictly inferior to everyone else by not maxing out IQ, but that's a specific problem that can be avoided in a generalist-encouraging system. (I like GURPS, but Lethe the system is full of weird flaws.)
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I do consider 'makes large parts of the system superfluous' to be a significant problem, because why bother with having those parts/alternate options at all?

Also, I recognize the Decker Problem, and I think that it may or may not be the same problem as the way people here have described the Sit In A Corner problem. Specifically, the Decker Problem is largely a case of one PC having an ability set that puts her away from the team (physically or metaphorically) while requiring GM attention; so while the Decker can e.g. be Smart and participate in other (cerebral) aspects of teamwork when other tasks are at hand, said Decker will leave everyone else wait in a state of non-participation while the decking is being done. Conversely, people here seemed to mention the idea that SiaC occurs to all or nearly all characters and their players, taking turns, because each and every task has a specialist assigned while others have nothing to contribute. They're sort of the opposite sides of a spectrum of related problems. Interestingly, whether either is a problem depends not only on builds, but on player mentalities and roleplaying manner. For instance, the typical groups of William H. Stoddard (the RPG author) tend to watch each other's Decker'ish adventures with enthusiasm, even when they don't get to participate.

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Also, you mention the situation when someone maxes IQ and somebody doesn't. Well, in terms of utility Charms, this problem seems present in Exalted, and it's called Sorcery. Need to fly at 90mph across creation? Well, you can get Athletics 5, 4 Charms, and fly for one scene. Or you can get Ride 5 and five Charms and fly for a day, slower. Or you can get one spell (Cirrus Skiff for fast travel, or Summon First Circle to get an Agata which is better than bothering with Ride Charms either way). Need long-range communication? Well, you can try getting a bazillion successes with three Awareness charms or get a Dreams-derived hearing charm (fourth) . . . or you can summon a dæmon who performs the task. War? Going for various high-level buffs? Or you can get that spell that blesses an army without even studying War. Need to DPS in combat, so you build murderblender? Well, summon a Second Circle once and have a murderblender always with your for a year. Resistance Charms? Nah, just get Skin of Bronze.

We have a Sorcerer in the party, and I'm kinda afraid of her potential and her ability to step on other niches by spending a silly low 8XP per niche. This is the same problem as GURPS IQ, but with supernatural abilities.
 
vicky_molokh said:
Also, I recognize the Decker Problem, and I think that it may or may not be the same problem as the way people here have described the Sit In A Corner problem. Specifically, the Decker Problem is largely a case of one PC having an ability set that puts her away from the team (physically or metaphorically) while requiring GM attention; so while the Decker can e.g. be Smart and participate in other (cerebral) aspects of teamwork when other tasks are at hand, said Decker will leave everyone else wait in a state of non-participation while the decking is being done. Conversely, people here seemed to mention the idea that SiaC occurs to all or nearly all characters and their players, taking turns, because each and every task has a specialist assigned while others have nothing to contribute. They're sort of the opposite sides of a spectrum of related problems. Interestingly, whether either is a problem depends not only on builds, but on player mentalities and roleplaying manner. For instance, the typical groups of William H. Stoddard (the RPG author) tend to watch each other's Decker'ish adventures with enthusiasm, even when they don't get to participate.
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The Decker Problem is basically a specific example of Knitting Syndrome/SiaC Syndrome. One player is active, everyone else sits in a corner.
It can be fun and entertain the group, but all too often it leaves most of the group bored and disengaged.
 
vicky_molokh said:
Also, you mention the situation when someone maxes IQ and somebody doesn't. Well, in terms of utility Charms, this problem seems present in Exalted, and it's called Sorcery. Need to fly at 90mph across creation? Well, you can get Athletics 5, 4 Charms, and fly for one scene. Or you can get Ride 5 and five Charms and fly for a day, slower. Or you can get one spell (Cirrus Skiff for fast travel, or Summon First Circle to get an Agata which is better than bothering with Ride Charms either way). Need long-range communication? Well, you can try getting a bazillion successes with three Awareness charms or get a Dreams-derived hearing charm (fourth) . . . or you can summon a dæmon who performs the task. War? Going for various high-level buffs? Or you can get that spell that blesses an army without even studying War. Need to DPS in combat, so you build murderblender? Well, summon a Second Circle once and have a murderblender always with your for a year. Resistance Charms? Nah, just get Skin of Bronze.

We have a Sorcerer in the party, and I'm kinda afraid of her potential and her ability to step on other niches by spending a silly low 8XP per niche. This is the same problem as GURPS IQ, but with supernatural abilities.
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The problem with relying on Sorcerers for utility comes up the moment they fly over someone with an appropriate amount of counter magic, especially in 3e where any sorcerer can do it to any spell of any level (but it might take a while). Also a sorcerer can never do as well as a Solar specifically specialized in that area. A properly built sorcerer is a 'Felix', a character that could solve a wide range of problems with an ok tool for the job from their magic bag, but when they go up against a stabby dawn, they are about two seconds away from getting stabbed.

Also sorcery costs more then charms to invest in (save for summon demon, but that spell is often the only reason why many people take sorcery). Blasty spells are effectively useless compared to the glorious Solar Railgun
 
MJ12 Commando said:
I think the funniest thing is that they could have had these charms behave differently when targeting battle groups, but instead chose to give the great nonanswer of "this might not make sense, so if the ST decides on it..." This isn't even an edge case rule, like the Solar Counterattack question of "I Solar Counterattack an enemy who successfully hits me and as a result, I kill him. Does he deal damage?" This is "if I target a fairly common type of target, does this charm work at all or does it waste my motes for no reason?"
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What irritates me the most about this is that they could totally have seen this coming. Unclear rules with poor logic were a pain in the proverbial ass throughout 2E, why would they do it again, deliberately? And with the mass combat system too, where the single largest problem was the inability to handle what happened when you used single target magic powers on blob units!
 
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Sucal said:
The problem with relying on Sorcerers for utility comes up the moment they fly over someone with an appropriate amount of counter magic, especially in 3e where any sorcerer can do it to any spell of any level (but it might take a while). Also a sorcerer can never do as well as a Solar specifically specialized in that area. A properly built sorcerer is a 'Felix', a character that could solve a wide range of problems with an ok tool for the job from their magic bag, but when they go up against a stabby dawn, they are about two seconds away from getting stabbed.

Also sorcery costs more then charms to invest in (save for summon demon, but that spell is often the only reason why many people take sorcery). Blasty spells are effectively useless compared to the glorious Solar Railgun
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I'm not talking about blasting things, nor even necessarily for using spells in combat (where they can be counterspelled). I'm talking about summoning a murdoblendo instead of being one (or summoning several). Of using a single spell to solve strategic travel for you and two passengers, and another one to solve (slower) strategic travel for you and a small army (instead of investing into whole skills with trees to vaguely cover said travel). Of having infinite free familiars built to the tasks required instead of painstakingly getting and using Survival charms to train a single familiar. I'm talking about summoning armies of superhuman combatants instead of slowly tigerwarriortraining them from humans.

Maybe some Essence-6 specs of Solars are better than Sorceror Spells, with infinite XP etc. etc. But for a finite budget, Cirrus Skiff is just a better utility thing than Eagle Wing Style or Sometimes Horses Fly, and the cost of branching into Ride is way way more (easily over 50XP) than the cost of branching into Cirrus Skiff (8-10XP). And that's just one example.
 
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