Matsci
Grash itsh griah! Rwar arr rawrrawrarar!
From what I've heard, it's really akward when Morke calls you at 6 in the morning because a leak is all over your forum.
Last edited:
General Exalted Thread
From what I've heard, it's really akward when Morke calls you at 6 in the morning because a leak is all over your forum.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
You mean Gork, right? Mork's the one that jumps out from under your bed to bash your skull in.
John Morke is one of the developers.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
No, Mork is the cunningly brutal Ork god.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
I thought Mork was the one who did that one hand-thingy with Mindy.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
More on the topic of actual Exalted than Gork and Mork, my Heaven's Reach quest is not dead! See, it stirs!
This update brought to you by a great deal of Star Wars and Metal Gear Rising in the past month.
This update brought to you by a great deal of Star Wars and Metal Gear Rising in the past month.
Last edited:
Wait, I thought he was the brutally cunning one.
I think that was the case. Gork was brutal, Mork was cunning, and they swapped descriptors.
- Location
- East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Nothing for it, you'll have to settle this dispute with a Waaaaaagh.
Warning: Warning
- Location
- Singapore
warning
Get back on topic.
Carrnage
Human
- Location
- New Zealand
well all the balancing and differentiating player builds and decker syndrome problems are minimised if it's just 1 player.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
What about Exalted do you want to do? Do you want combat? Social conflict? Empire building? Morality plays?
Do you prefer abstract or detailed mechanics? Task resolution vs conflict resolution?
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
Depends on a few things. Combat and Social most likely. Craft would be nice but not absolutely necessary. Same with Empire building mechanics. I would prefer detailed or clear mechanics and smoothness of play. Nothing that spoils immersion.
Less resource management is also preferred.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
hey what's this sound
it's the sound of omicron doing another one of his dumb ex3 homebrew based on his latest fad
This is probably hideously unbalanced. I did my best with my limited skills and reference material (note that this Charm basically can't be combo'd with anything), but it's still likely broken in some fashion.
Bonus points: if you only go up to the Form you can be a convincing Emiya Shirou/Gilgamesh, complete with Reality Marble/Chains of Enkidu.
That said.
Determination is the power to see the world you desire, and to make it come true.
No matter who or what stands in your way.
No matter how many time you fail.
There have been many students of this Style in Yu-Shan, and there still are a handful today. The power of determination, the will to manifest your passion as weapons and fight with them, are prized by many. But study stalls beyond its Form.
There have been six masters of this style in the history of Heaven, and they are a thing not talked about.
Armors: This style is incompatible with armor.
Weapons: The Gilded Blossoms of Determination style may only be used with the 'blossoms' created by Blossoms of Infinite Passion. Unarmed attacks are valid for use with the Martial Arts Excellency but not the style's own Charms.
Student's Sutra of Determination: Once, there was a soulless maiden...
Blossoms of Infinite Passion
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 1;
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: None
But you already know her story, don't you?
The first art of the Gilded Blossom is to grasp one's beating heart in one's fingers, and to forge it into a weapon. Upon learning this Charm, the user chooses one of their Major or Defining Intimacies, and to fashion it into a blossom: a magical weapon he may manifest out of his own Essence. A blossom has the traits of a mundane light weapon with the bashing and thrown (short) tags, save he rolls its attacks with Martial Arts (Gilded Blossoms of Determinations style) rather than Thrown. Furthermore, the weapon gains one tag of the user's choice (this may replace bashing with lethal); the special tag may allow certain odd properties subject to Storyteller approval, using published weapons as a guideline.
The form of the blossom depends on the nature of the Intimacy, and a martial artist may learn several variants to manifest different Intimacies. An Intimacy of anger may produce gouts of scouring flame, an Intimacy of love may produce replicas of an iconic item or weapon of the loved one. The martial artist may have as many blossoms as he has dots of permanent Essence, and each one may have a different bonus tag.
Sutra: Blossoms have the traits of a light artifact weapon.
Love of Violence Atemi
Cost: 6m; Mins: Essence 2;
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Withering-only, Perilous
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Blossoms of Infinite Passion
You just wanted to see her suffer again.
Passion leads to ambition. Desire leads to determination. The will to see one's dreams come true is what drives the power of the Gilded Blossoms. Drawing upon the dream embodied in one of his magical attacks, the martial artist intensifies it to the utmost, creating a dizzying onslaught of ephemeral attacks.
This Charm enhances a withering attack performed with a blossom; it deducts the value of the Intimacy used to create it from the target's Defense. The onslaught produces major collateral damage, destroying all fragile surroundings and slaying all trivial opponents within short range of the target.
Once it is used, the Intimacy used in the attack "dulls" for the rest of the scene, being no more to the user than a distant memory; the blossom 'wilts' and the martial artist may not use it as a weapon. Further use of this Charm requires other blossoms to enhance. Overuse of this Charm may cause the user to lose all his blossoms.
No Escape From Pain
Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 2;
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Blossoms of Infinite Passion
The maiden looked at you,
The soul of determination sees one path towards victory, and will not accept reality straying from its course. When an opponent escapes from his grasp, the martial artist focuses on a memory of a few instants before when she was in his reach, and bends Creation into restoring this image.
This Charm may be used in reaction to an opponent moving away from the user's short range; it forces the target to succeed on a reflexive disengage action if she wishes to escape, with the normal Initiative cost. On a failure, she completes her movement but is then relocated to her previous position as if it had never happened.
You Can't Dodge Forever
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 2;
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Withering-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: No Escape From Pain, Love of Violence Atemi
and said, "You think you're so special, but you're not.
In the path of one's dreams there are a thousand enemies; destroy them all. If they fight, if they win, it does not matter: force your will upon the world, retrace the same course of action over and over again until they slip, just once, and fall.
This Charm may be used when an opponent successfully defends against a withering blossom attack; the martial artist may immediately repeat this same attack, with any Charms used to enhance it still applying. Onslaught penalties apply. This Charm may not be used in a clash, and may only be used once per scene, unless reset by successfully incapacitating an opponent. However, its effect occurs before the dulling of any Intimacy caused by other Charms of this Style; the blossom only wilts once all attacks are finished.
Sutra: An Essence 3+ Sidereal whose opponent successfully defends against the second attack created by this Charm may immediately pay 10m, 1wp in order to create a third attack. This is a Perilous effect; failure causes him to fall to 0 Initiative, crashing him.
Gilded Blossoms of Determination Form
Cost: 10m; Mins: Essence 2;
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form-type
Duration: One scene
Prerequisites: You Can't Dodge Forever
In this world, it's kill or be killed."
Sheer willpower coursing through his veins, the martial artist opens his arms and imposes his will upon the world. An aura of blackness swallows his surroundings, and in it he stands alone with his hopes and dreams blossoming in a ballet of weaponized passion.
This Charm 'erases' the martial artist's surrounding, replacing them with erratic manifestations of his blossoms. This turns his environment out to short range into difficult terrain for all his opponents; all opponents entering this area of their own will lose two points of Initiative, and the user gains any Initiative spent by his opponents to disengage from within range of him. When the Form ends, the surroundings return to their normal state, undamaged.
Sutra: A Sidereal student of the Gilded Blossom can orchestrate the ballet of ephemeral weapons to disrupt all attempts at landing a blow on him. All attacks against him suffer a -3 penalty.
Dream-Eater's Hunger
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 3;
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Perilous, Stackable
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Gilded Blossoms of Determination Form
So she killed her mother and her father
The painful truth of determination is that no single life is enough to change the world. No matter how powerful you are, no matter how decided, the task is simply too large to undertake with the strength of a single man's dedication.
So you take power from all who stand in your way. You take their souls, and add their determination to your own. It may be harsh, but it's the law of this world: kill or be killed.
This Charm may be used upon slaying a significant opponent. The martial artist draws out the target's soul and subsumes it into his own, drawing in its Essence. This does not, on its own, destroy the soul, but it does benefit the martial artist, allowing him to regain one point of Willpower. If the victim is a spirit, the user regains a number of motes of Essence equal to the spirit's permanent Essence, which may pay for this Charm's commitment. If the victim is an Exalt, the user may immediately roll Join Battle with a pool of the victim's (Essence + permanent Willpower).
This Charm has another benefit. Drawing upon a captive soul, the user may manifest their own hopes and dreams and bind them to his will. This allows him to create a new blossom based on a Defining Intimacy of the soul, in excess of his normal limits. If the Intimacy is dulled, the soul escapes the user's control. If the user is crashed, all souls escape his control. Captive souls manifest as colored flames orbiting the user.
Stolen Souls Howling
Cost: (+4m, 1wp); Mins: Essence 3;
Type: Permanent
Keywords: Withering-only
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Dream-Eater's Hunger
She killed her friends and her enemies
Drawing upon one's own passions, one faces limits - of caring, of exhaustion, of the fear of losing oneself. By drawing upon the soul of another, there are no limits other than the strength of the soul itself. The martial artists sublimates one of his captive souls into a brief glimpse of a world embodying their deepest nature - turning it against his opponent.
This Charm may upgrade Love of Violence Atemi when it enhances a withering attack performed with a blossom created from a captive soul. The enhanced attack is made with a free full Excellency, and its raw damage is increased by (4 + soul's Essence). Once this Charm is used, the soul is immediately released.
However, there is a danger inherent to this Charm. Souls chafe when they are harnessed for power, and an opponent who can withstand their terrible onslaught undaunted may seize this opportunity and receives a parcel of their power. If the attack fails to crash its target, she may immediately roll Join Battle.
Torment Never Ends
Cost: 5m, 3i, 1wp; Mins: Essence 4;
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Stolen Souls Howling
She killed everything there was to see in this world.
When the enemy has been broken - when their determination has been shattered - they offer themselves, vulnerable, numb to their impending death. In this moment, they prove themselves unfit for a world which requires constant, unabating ferocity. The martial artist manifests his blossoms in the blink of an eye, and shatters the enemy before they have the time to realize their moment of mistake.
This Charm may be used when its prerequisite successfully crashed an opponent. It allows the user to reflexively perform a decisive attack against that same opponent. This attack must use a different blossom than the one used for the prerequisite, and also causes it to dull.
Much like its prerequisite, this Charm represents a gamble. If the attack it permits fails to incapacitate the opponent, then the surviving enemy gains a window of opportunity. They are allowed one reflexive withering attack, after the martial artist has reset to base Initiative.
Sutra: successfully killing an opponent with this technique allows the user to activate Dream-Eater's Hunger for a discounted cost of 1m.
Dreams Never Die
Cost: 1i per success + 4m; Mins: Essence 4;
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Perilous, Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Stolen Souls Howling
She even killed herself. And because she killed herself,
True determination endures beyond death. Indeed, it does not allow death. The body may fail - the soul yet endures. And enduring it pulls its shell back together, reverses the flow of events, reconstitutes a crumbling enveloped through sheer will and the power of Essence.
This Charm allows the user to undo the effects of a successful decisive attack, cancelling successes on a damage roll at rate of one point of Initiative per success. If all successes are cancelled, the user seems to revert to the state he was in before the attack even happened, and any additional effects from the attack are cancelled as if he had successfully defended.
Sutra: A Sidereal may use this Charm and wilt one of his blossoms to cancel a single esoteric effect against which there are no physical defenses, such as an astrological or divine curse or a mind-twisting spell.
This Is My World
Cost: 8m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 5;
Type: Simple
Keywords: Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Dreams Never Die, Torment Never Ends
She was safe from herself,
All the interlopers gather, swarming you with their inane struggle. No one can see that this is your world. That only you have the vision to make it come about. The power of your soul blazes like a sun, and your infinite passions and stolen souls blossom in an infinite cascade of attacks. Fire and blades and vines and petals all meld together in a chaotic dance.
This Charm constitutes a decisive attack against all opponents within short range. The user rolls a single attack, and its successes are compared to the Defense of all opponents. Any Charm enhancing this attack applies against all opponents equally, and he may choose to apply the tags of any and all of his functional blossoms. The user then divides his Initiative as he chooses between all opponents who were successfully damaged. He does not lose Initiative for failing to hit any given opponent, only if he fails to hit all opponents. The user resets to base Initiative once all attacks are finished.
This Charm wilts one blossom, and may only be used once per scene.
Sutra: A Sidereal adds a number of dice of raw damage equal to the total number of opponents he successfully hit to the damage rolled against each target. Each incapacitated opponent rewards him with one point of Initiative upon resetting to base.
Hopes And Dreams Apotheosis
Cost: (+10m, 1wp); Mins: Essence 5;
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: This Is My World
Forever.
In the face of man's frailty, there is only one solution: to become a god. There is a spark of the divine within the Exalted, but even that is not sufficient; indeed the gods themselves are debased and low in this fallen world. The promise towards which the Gilded Blossom reaches is like the elusive sun towards which blooms the flower - infinitely beautiful. Infinitely distant. Devour the souls of all mankind, King of Dreams, and you will know only the bloated horror of your own futile being.
Yet still you try.
Upon using this Charm, the user drains the power of as many souls as he can - including his own - suffusing his material form with their pure Essence. Because the human body was not meant for such transformative power, the reaction is horrid. His flesh melts and reforms, bloating to enormous size, its shape changing in a grotesque amalgamate of all the Intimacies from which he draws his blossom-weapons. Some users of this Style have become mounds of tumescent flesh screaming through the faces of all their loved ones, others living puppets of rusted steel jutting out in a hundred swords; the creator of this style, its first master, is said to have become a titanic amalgamate of vines, sunflowers and brambles in which writhed his own agonized body.
This Charm enhances Gilded Blossoms of Determination Form, enhancing it at the moment when its additional cost is paid. It causes all of the user's Intimacies to dull - effectively, he has no Intimacies for its duration, becoming entirely callous and heartless. For this reason, most users only activate it once they have captive souls. In return, they enjoy several benefits:
This Charm is not without drawbacks. Upon coming out of this form, the martial artist is burned out from trying to wield a power far greater than him - and those souls he leaned too hard on are consumed, burning a piece of his own self with them. At the end of the scene, every soul that is still 'dulled' is burned away, inflicting one point of Limit on the user and upgrading a level of damage he has suffered to aggravated, starting from his highest wound penalty; if he has not suffered enough damage to upgrade it all, additional aggravated lethal damage is inflicted. This Charm may not be used again until all aggravated damage has healed.
Sutra: A Sidereal has the potential to maintain the horror of this form as long as they need to see their grand vision through - or until they are slain. For them, this Charm has a duration of Indefinite, which also upgrades the duration of this style's Form. It is said that a Sidereal who uses this form to absorb the souls of seven Celestial Exalts will know true apotheosis into a being who could remake the world - but if there is any truth for this, it has never been put to the test.
it's the sound of omicron doing another one of his dumb ex3 homebrew based on his latest fad
This is probably hideously unbalanced. I did my best with my limited skills and reference material (note that this Charm basically can't be combo'd with anything), but it's still likely broken in some fashion.
Bonus points: if you only go up to the Form you can be a convincing Emiya Shirou/Gilgamesh, complete with Reality Marble/Chains of Enkidu.
That said.
Determination is the power to see the world you desire, and to make it come true.
No matter who or what stands in your way.
No matter how many time you fail.
There have been many students of this Style in Yu-Shan, and there still are a handful today. The power of determination, the will to manifest your passion as weapons and fight with them, are prized by many. But study stalls beyond its Form.
There have been six masters of this style in the history of Heaven, and they are a thing not talked about.
Armors: This style is incompatible with armor.
Weapons: The Gilded Blossoms of Determination style may only be used with the 'blossoms' created by Blossoms of Infinite Passion. Unarmed attacks are valid for use with the Martial Arts Excellency but not the style's own Charms.
Student's Sutra of Determination: Once, there was a soulless maiden...
Blossoms of Infinite Passion
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 1;
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: None
But you already know her story, don't you?
The first art of the Gilded Blossom is to grasp one's beating heart in one's fingers, and to forge it into a weapon. Upon learning this Charm, the user chooses one of their Major or Defining Intimacies, and to fashion it into a blossom: a magical weapon he may manifest out of his own Essence. A blossom has the traits of a mundane light weapon with the bashing and thrown (short) tags, save he rolls its attacks with Martial Arts (Gilded Blossoms of Determinations style) rather than Thrown. Furthermore, the weapon gains one tag of the user's choice (this may replace bashing with lethal); the special tag may allow certain odd properties subject to Storyteller approval, using published weapons as a guideline.
The form of the blossom depends on the nature of the Intimacy, and a martial artist may learn several variants to manifest different Intimacies. An Intimacy of anger may produce gouts of scouring flame, an Intimacy of love may produce replicas of an iconic item or weapon of the loved one. The martial artist may have as many blossoms as he has dots of permanent Essence, and each one may have a different bonus tag.
Sutra: Blossoms have the traits of a light artifact weapon.
Love of Violence Atemi
Cost: 6m; Mins: Essence 2;
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Withering-only, Perilous
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Blossoms of Infinite Passion
You just wanted to see her suffer again.
Passion leads to ambition. Desire leads to determination. The will to see one's dreams come true is what drives the power of the Gilded Blossoms. Drawing upon the dream embodied in one of his magical attacks, the martial artist intensifies it to the utmost, creating a dizzying onslaught of ephemeral attacks.
This Charm enhances a withering attack performed with a blossom; it deducts the value of the Intimacy used to create it from the target's Defense. The onslaught produces major collateral damage, destroying all fragile surroundings and slaying all trivial opponents within short range of the target.
Once it is used, the Intimacy used in the attack "dulls" for the rest of the scene, being no more to the user than a distant memory; the blossom 'wilts' and the martial artist may not use it as a weapon. Further use of this Charm requires other blossoms to enhance. Overuse of this Charm may cause the user to lose all his blossoms.
No Escape From Pain
Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 2;
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Blossoms of Infinite Passion
The maiden looked at you,
The soul of determination sees one path towards victory, and will not accept reality straying from its course. When an opponent escapes from his grasp, the martial artist focuses on a memory of a few instants before when she was in his reach, and bends Creation into restoring this image.
This Charm may be used in reaction to an opponent moving away from the user's short range; it forces the target to succeed on a reflexive disengage action if she wishes to escape, with the normal Initiative cost. On a failure, she completes her movement but is then relocated to her previous position as if it had never happened.
You Can't Dodge Forever
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 2;
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Withering-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: No Escape From Pain, Love of Violence Atemi
and said, "You think you're so special, but you're not.
In the path of one's dreams there are a thousand enemies; destroy them all. If they fight, if they win, it does not matter: force your will upon the world, retrace the same course of action over and over again until they slip, just once, and fall.
This Charm may be used when an opponent successfully defends against a withering blossom attack; the martial artist may immediately repeat this same attack, with any Charms used to enhance it still applying. Onslaught penalties apply. This Charm may not be used in a clash, and may only be used once per scene, unless reset by successfully incapacitating an opponent. However, its effect occurs before the dulling of any Intimacy caused by other Charms of this Style; the blossom only wilts once all attacks are finished.
Sutra: An Essence 3+ Sidereal whose opponent successfully defends against the second attack created by this Charm may immediately pay 10m, 1wp in order to create a third attack. This is a Perilous effect; failure causes him to fall to 0 Initiative, crashing him.
Gilded Blossoms of Determination Form
Cost: 10m; Mins: Essence 2;
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form-type
Duration: One scene
Prerequisites: You Can't Dodge Forever
In this world, it's kill or be killed."
Sheer willpower coursing through his veins, the martial artist opens his arms and imposes his will upon the world. An aura of blackness swallows his surroundings, and in it he stands alone with his hopes and dreams blossoming in a ballet of weaponized passion.
This Charm 'erases' the martial artist's surrounding, replacing them with erratic manifestations of his blossoms. This turns his environment out to short range into difficult terrain for all his opponents; all opponents entering this area of their own will lose two points of Initiative, and the user gains any Initiative spent by his opponents to disengage from within range of him. When the Form ends, the surroundings return to their normal state, undamaged.
Sutra: A Sidereal student of the Gilded Blossom can orchestrate the ballet of ephemeral weapons to disrupt all attempts at landing a blow on him. All attacks against him suffer a -3 penalty.
Dream-Eater's Hunger
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 3;
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Perilous, Stackable
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Gilded Blossoms of Determination Form
So she killed her mother and her father
The painful truth of determination is that no single life is enough to change the world. No matter how powerful you are, no matter how decided, the task is simply too large to undertake with the strength of a single man's dedication.
So you take power from all who stand in your way. You take their souls, and add their determination to your own. It may be harsh, but it's the law of this world: kill or be killed.
This Charm may be used upon slaying a significant opponent. The martial artist draws out the target's soul and subsumes it into his own, drawing in its Essence. This does not, on its own, destroy the soul, but it does benefit the martial artist, allowing him to regain one point of Willpower. If the victim is a spirit, the user regains a number of motes of Essence equal to the spirit's permanent Essence, which may pay for this Charm's commitment. If the victim is an Exalt, the user may immediately roll Join Battle with a pool of the victim's (Essence + permanent Willpower).
This Charm has another benefit. Drawing upon a captive soul, the user may manifest their own hopes and dreams and bind them to his will. This allows him to create a new blossom based on a Defining Intimacy of the soul, in excess of his normal limits. If the Intimacy is dulled, the soul escapes the user's control. If the user is crashed, all souls escape his control. Captive souls manifest as colored flames orbiting the user.
Stolen Souls Howling
Cost: (+4m, 1wp); Mins: Essence 3;
Type: Permanent
Keywords: Withering-only
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Dream-Eater's Hunger
She killed her friends and her enemies
Drawing upon one's own passions, one faces limits - of caring, of exhaustion, of the fear of losing oneself. By drawing upon the soul of another, there are no limits other than the strength of the soul itself. The martial artists sublimates one of his captive souls into a brief glimpse of a world embodying their deepest nature - turning it against his opponent.
This Charm may upgrade Love of Violence Atemi when it enhances a withering attack performed with a blossom created from a captive soul. The enhanced attack is made with a free full Excellency, and its raw damage is increased by (4 + soul's Essence). Once this Charm is used, the soul is immediately released.
However, there is a danger inherent to this Charm. Souls chafe when they are harnessed for power, and an opponent who can withstand their terrible onslaught undaunted may seize this opportunity and receives a parcel of their power. If the attack fails to crash its target, she may immediately roll Join Battle.
Torment Never Ends
Cost: 5m, 3i, 1wp; Mins: Essence 4;
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Stolen Souls Howling
She killed everything there was to see in this world.
When the enemy has been broken - when their determination has been shattered - they offer themselves, vulnerable, numb to their impending death. In this moment, they prove themselves unfit for a world which requires constant, unabating ferocity. The martial artist manifests his blossoms in the blink of an eye, and shatters the enemy before they have the time to realize their moment of mistake.
This Charm may be used when its prerequisite successfully crashed an opponent. It allows the user to reflexively perform a decisive attack against that same opponent. This attack must use a different blossom than the one used for the prerequisite, and also causes it to dull.
Much like its prerequisite, this Charm represents a gamble. If the attack it permits fails to incapacitate the opponent, then the surviving enemy gains a window of opportunity. They are allowed one reflexive withering attack, after the martial artist has reset to base Initiative.
Sutra: successfully killing an opponent with this technique allows the user to activate Dream-Eater's Hunger for a discounted cost of 1m.
Dreams Never Die
Cost: 1i per success + 4m; Mins: Essence 4;
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Perilous, Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Stolen Souls Howling
She even killed herself. And because she killed herself,
True determination endures beyond death. Indeed, it does not allow death. The body may fail - the soul yet endures. And enduring it pulls its shell back together, reverses the flow of events, reconstitutes a crumbling enveloped through sheer will and the power of Essence.
This Charm allows the user to undo the effects of a successful decisive attack, cancelling successes on a damage roll at rate of one point of Initiative per success. If all successes are cancelled, the user seems to revert to the state he was in before the attack even happened, and any additional effects from the attack are cancelled as if he had successfully defended.
Sutra: A Sidereal may use this Charm and wilt one of his blossoms to cancel a single esoteric effect against which there are no physical defenses, such as an astrological or divine curse or a mind-twisting spell.
This Is My World
Cost: 8m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 5;
Type: Simple
Keywords: Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Dreams Never Die, Torment Never Ends
She was safe from herself,
All the interlopers gather, swarming you with their inane struggle. No one can see that this is your world. That only you have the vision to make it come about. The power of your soul blazes like a sun, and your infinite passions and stolen souls blossom in an infinite cascade of attacks. Fire and blades and vines and petals all meld together in a chaotic dance.
This Charm constitutes a decisive attack against all opponents within short range. The user rolls a single attack, and its successes are compared to the Defense of all opponents. Any Charm enhancing this attack applies against all opponents equally, and he may choose to apply the tags of any and all of his functional blossoms. The user then divides his Initiative as he chooses between all opponents who were successfully damaged. He does not lose Initiative for failing to hit any given opponent, only if he fails to hit all opponents. The user resets to base Initiative once all attacks are finished.
This Charm wilts one blossom, and may only be used once per scene.
Sutra: A Sidereal adds a number of dice of raw damage equal to the total number of opponents he successfully hit to the damage rolled against each target. Each incapacitated opponent rewards him with one point of Initiative upon resetting to base.
Hopes And Dreams Apotheosis
Cost: (+10m, 1wp); Mins: Essence 5;
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: This Is My World
Forever.
In the face of man's frailty, there is only one solution: to become a god. There is a spark of the divine within the Exalted, but even that is not sufficient; indeed the gods themselves are debased and low in this fallen world. The promise towards which the Gilded Blossom reaches is like the elusive sun towards which blooms the flower - infinitely beautiful. Infinitely distant. Devour the souls of all mankind, King of Dreams, and you will know only the bloated horror of your own futile being.
Yet still you try.
Upon using this Charm, the user drains the power of as many souls as he can - including his own - suffusing his material form with their pure Essence. Because the human body was not meant for such transformative power, the reaction is horrid. His flesh melts and reforms, bloating to enormous size, its shape changing in a grotesque amalgamate of all the Intimacies from which he draws his blossom-weapons. Some users of this Style have become mounds of tumescent flesh screaming through the faces of all their loved ones, others living puppets of rusted steel jutting out in a hundred swords; the creator of this style, its first master, is said to have become a titanic amalgamate of vines, sunflowers and brambles in which writhed his own agonized body.
This Charm enhances Gilded Blossoms of Determination Form, enhancing it at the moment when its additional cost is paid. It causes all of the user's Intimacies to dull - effectively, he has no Intimacies for its duration, becoming entirely callous and heartless. For this reason, most users only activate it once they have captive souls. In return, they enjoy several benefits:
- The user gains the Legendary Size merit.
- Souls are not released when their blossom wilts, they simply dull. Whenever the user absorbs a new soul, one of these dulled souls springs back to life. Dream-Eater's Hunger is no longer Perilous; souls are not lost upon being crashed.
- The aura created by the Form, and the radius of difficult terrain which accompanies it, expands out to medium range; this also increases the range band which enemies lose Initiative for entering.
- Blossoms increase their maximum range to medium, and gain the traits of medium weapons.
- The costs of Love of Violence Atemi and Dream-Eater's Hunger are reduced by one mote, and the cost of No Escape From Pain reduced by one point of willpower. By adding (+2m, 1wp) to the cost of No Escape From Pain, the user may apply its effect against an opponent trying to get away from medium range.
This Charm is not without drawbacks. Upon coming out of this form, the martial artist is burned out from trying to wield a power far greater than him - and those souls he leaned too hard on are consumed, burning a piece of his own self with them. At the end of the scene, every soul that is still 'dulled' is burned away, inflicting one point of Limit on the user and upgrading a level of damage he has suffered to aggravated, starting from his highest wound penalty; if he has not suffered enough damage to upgrade it all, additional aggravated lethal damage is inflicted. This Charm may not be used again until all aggravated damage has healed.
Sutra: A Sidereal has the potential to maintain the horror of this form as long as they need to see their grand vision through - or until they are slain. For them, this Charm has a duration of Indefinite, which also upgrades the duration of this style's Form. It is said that a Sidereal who uses this form to absorb the souls of seven Celestial Exalts will know true apotheosis into a being who could remake the world - but if there is any truth for this, it has never been put to the test.
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
Hmm. On one hand, fair enough; I seet informed. On the other, that leaves a weird gap in game mechanics when it comes to feats like creating Sorcery and other static phenomena. It seems to me (I don't know, not being a backer) that the new Sorcerous Workings have filled that niche, and also that 2e's thing that @Aaron Peori called 'Glamour Sorcery' is likewise flexible (I haven't read much of GWM's game mechanics . . . yet?).
Well, it would be nice to know a system that can reliably, clearly, definitely do Exalted better than Exalted does.
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
Not looking for anything long term actually. A friend of mine is around for a month or so and was some what interested in Exalted. He wants to try the game for a few sessions. So no long term stuff and I am probably going to just stick to 2.5/3E.
I've heard Legends of the Wulin described as the system for when you want to play Exalted without having to suffer through Exalted. Has anyone here played it, and if so, could they weigh in? Would it be a good system to model Exalted?
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
It depends on what you think Exalted does, and what's most important. As @samdamandias has mentioned, I (sadly briefly) ran a heavily Exalted-inspired game using FATE Core. It seemed to work well, but we were still working out the kinks.
It's... Interesting. I'm not sure how it works in actual play, but it's interesting.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
If you cut out everything in Exalted but the wuxia, probably (this is much easier than it sounds, though non-trivial).
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
I haven't played, but the dice mechanic seems about as complicated and convoluted as Ex3e. To put it shortly:
You roll a pool of dice that is defined by something for a character (the character's power level, I think). You also have a special pool into which you can place rolled dice, or take out rolled dice to add to your roll (you don't reroll them). Then you count how many dice came up with the same numbers; that's your tens. Then see what's this same number on those dice ('A'); that's your one's ('B'). So now you know your rolled result ('AB') before modifiers. Then you add your skill levels to it. If you do multiple actions, you need to look for multiple matching die sets or something (and hope you get any). I shut down my attempt to figure it out a short while past this point.
Could you please give a synopsis of the way you decided to implement mechanics for phenomena that are characteristic of Exalted (e.g. perfect defences, animas)?
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
The core mechanic is actually really simple, it just requires a bit of mental adjusting. It's about tied with ORE for simple rolling mechanics, which I can say from experience are really easy. The River (those set-aside dice) are a bit more confusing, but that's not a mechanics confusing, but rather the core difficulty of Wulin: remembering all your modifiers and resources to spend at any given time. Wulin combat is pretty complex and can be very slow before you know it really well, as I understand it, but the fault for that isn't on the actual rolling mechanic.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
I'm going to try and give you a quick summary, but please, please, accept the fact that I'm only giving you that.
Onieromancy is the 'Crafted' Sorcery that Raksha use. The basic idea is they create a Something, an Onieromantic spell, which is basically a point-buy system. The spell-crafter (player) then plugs in Mutation-keyworded charms into the spell to create its effects.
So to help explain, if a Raksha has a Mutation-Charm, and has used it As a mutation, it's built into their Shaped existence. Like, one charm lets them just snap their fingers and summon a pre-programmed tool to their hands like a sword. There's pros and cons to this and we'll worry about them in another post.
When plugged into a spell, the charms are used as kind of a 'Box' you can write in your own reasonable interpretation of the effect- the charms themselves don't cover all eventualities, so you're free to expand the fluff and crunch. One of the canonical spells uses a couple charms to prevent people from recognizing their location- it makes them get very lost within the affected area, and they will walk in circles.
Now, there's also Wyld-Stunting/Sorcery. That is basically a kind of Wyld-Only thing, but a Raksha wiht Style 5 (background) can do it in Creation. What's generally accepted/described by the book, is you pay the Gossamer cost as per the rules, and you get to apply or make up an appropriate 'Sorcery' style effect.
This is how Raksha get to do things like Death of Obsidian Butterflies, but it's not ACTUALLY DoOB. Nor is it a spell. Might be susceptible to countermagic though.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
How do you feel about FATE?
The roll system is as complex if not more so than Ex3, it has between five and ten different resources to keep track of in play.
On the other hand it has the Chi Conditions system which is the best social mechanic system I have ever seen. Basically all things that can effect your character, from wounds to illnesses to emotional investments to the flow of destiny and so on is a Chi Condition. Chi Conditions come in 'bonus' and 'penalty' versions, and almost always occur paired (ie if you get a bonus in one area you get a matching penalty in another, all based around a five element 'wheel' of associations). A condition has a roleplaying tag associated such as 'you are angry at Whispering Flower' or 'your spleen is full of poison making you stagger about'. If you act in a way that support the roleplaying tag you either gain a bonus or avoid a penalty, if you act in a way contrary to the tag you either loose the bonus or gain a penalty. Note that there is nothing preventing you from making a 'bad' condition into a bonus (and in fact, this is a common tactic of doctors and scholars and courtiers). So if you have 'my liver is full of wood chi making my hands sweaty and unable to grip things' you can totally say "Oh, is the bad guys grappling me? I use my sweat to slip free!" and suddenly that's a bonus.
The system also uses Lores to create setting details. Each setting element has a Loresheet, and when you 'learn' that Loresheet your character not only knows the setting detail they open up various benefits and bonuses such as access to special moves, improved social standing, magical weapons and so on.
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
We didn't. It was a Heroic Mortal game with some spirits and ghosts as side elements. Animas could be done as stunts or powers, and perfect effects would be more expensive stunts costing multiple refresh.
QwiXalted looks okay, but doesn't really have that much mechanical depth.