For one even if you count the native styles you had roughly 1/3 of the current Ma styles, we only had 3 SMA styles , 5-6 TM with around ..10? or so Celestial martial arts styles. Thus there was also a lack of powercreep.
General Exalted Thread
Martial Arts 2.0 is like Nanosuit 2.0 right? It looks like it's got all the features you want for the low, low cost of increased bulk, and then hollows out your brain and turns you into a nonsapient cyber-zombie?
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Like that, except without having any features I want.
Walker of the Yellow Path
Ho There!
- Location
- The Land of Memes
Just curious. What features would you want?
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
See above.
... unless you mean with regard to Evocations, in which case I wouldn't. Like the Martial Arts system as it stands, I think the basic concept is a bad idea, and would just purge it with fire and replace it with something simpler and more elegant, which doesn't take up 30 pages of the corebook that could be far better used for plot hooks, elegant and easy-to-use systems, setting information and a varied and diverse range of options for players.
Because seriously, which is better? A full-length Charm tree for every Martial Arts Style/three per Artifact for Evocations; with maybe two or three examples sprawled across ten pages, or a simple and compact system that's easy to homebrew for, difficult or impossible to break mechanically, and which can fit the entire ruleset plus thirty or forty examples into those same ten pages?
Making a lesser magical material is literally as easy as coming up with a cool idea - "hey, sweet, some trees in Australia that grow on gold-rich soil end up with gold in their leaves. I wonder if you could do the same with starmetal?" - and then writing up a fluff description for it, and applying, say, two to four +1s or -1s (summing to zero) to a standard better-than-a-steel-weapon statline to give them some minor mechanical differences from each other and represent how they're better than normal materials. Using that example...
Boom, done.
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Evocations exist to bind an Artifact to its wielder's legend. There is absolutely no narrative difference between Evocations and other Charms; the Evocations are only there because they've been drawn out by their wielder. This creates a meaningful difference between Artifacts and mundane weapons, something which second edition failed at, integrates Artifacts into a character's overall development, models legendary ancient weapons as well as newly-forged weapons whose legend is still in the making and opens new opportunities for homebrew and published content in order to strengthen the game.
In second edition, the best you can do is front-load an Artifact with a bunch of powers and increase its dot rating. There is absolutely nothing special about the Artifact's wielder, as all the power is contained within the Artifact itself and anyone can use it. Third edition retains this approach for certain Artifacts, such as the ones that are deliberately designed to be picked up and wielded by anyone. I think the winterbreath jar is the example that came up. Possibly gunzosha armour as well.
Third edition uses Evocations to model a character's gradual mastery of a weapon over time. The powers do not come from the Artifact alone, but from the union of the Artifact and its wielder, and can only be obtained through some form of effort. This has the side-effect of making NPCs like the Scarlet Empress and the Perfect of Paragon much more impressive than they were in second edition. The Scarlet Empress didn't just break into the Imperial Manse, she bent the Sword of Creation to her will and made herself its master. The Perfect doesn't just rule Paragon because he got lucky and found some awesome First Age relic that any one else could use, but because he made the Scepter of Peace and Order his own and used it to forge a legend of tyranny for himself. A Solar could not immediately claim the power of the Empress or the Perfect by walking into a manse or stealing a staff. It would demand a great deal of effort and dedication. Likewise, players who master a weapon's Evocations have accomplished a noteworthy feat exclusive to them that no one else could replicate.
If you don't want to play a character whose narrative prominently features an Artifact of great power, then you don't learn Evocations.
In second edition, the best you can do is front-load an Artifact with a bunch of powers and increase its dot rating. There is absolutely nothing special about the Artifact's wielder, as all the power is contained within the Artifact itself and anyone can use it. Third edition retains this approach for certain Artifacts, such as the ones that are deliberately designed to be picked up and wielded by anyone. I think the winterbreath jar is the example that came up. Possibly gunzosha armour as well.
Third edition uses Evocations to model a character's gradual mastery of a weapon over time. The powers do not come from the Artifact alone, but from the union of the Artifact and its wielder, and can only be obtained through some form of effort. This has the side-effect of making NPCs like the Scarlet Empress and the Perfect of Paragon much more impressive than they were in second edition. The Scarlet Empress didn't just break into the Imperial Manse, she bent the Sword of Creation to her will and made herself its master. The Perfect doesn't just rule Paragon because he got lucky and found some awesome First Age relic that any one else could use, but because he made the Scepter of Peace and Order his own and used it to forge a legend of tyranny for himself. A Solar could not immediately claim the power of the Empress or the Perfect by walking into a manse or stealing a staff. It would demand a great deal of effort and dedication. Likewise, players who master a weapon's Evocations have accomplished a noteworthy feat exclusive to them that no one else could replicate.
If you don't want to play a character whose narrative prominently features an Artifact of great power, then you don't learn Evocations.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
I think another problem that I have with Evocations is that they have been near explicitly said to be Weapons/Armour only, with other things being incredibly rare. While they are meant to be something that recreates Excalibur or Kusanagi, I can't help but think that there is a lot of design space being lost that could be used for other character types.
Such as an Exalted Healer whose Celestial Phoenix Caldron has begun to replicate the effects of Bran's caldron, The Pirate captain whose Cord of Wind calls the elementals back inside after use, the Pancrea pipe that allows mortals who smoke from it a few extra years of life provided they willingly serve its master. Not to mention the Abyssal Necromancer whose infamous for having both the only working Crucible of Tarim for miles... but can do things with it that have even the Sidereals shaking their heads and wondering how.
(note that I'm ignoring the balance in some of these things to come up with ideas that could be done). Instead its just 'more ways to hit and hurt people'.
Such as an Exalted Healer whose Celestial Phoenix Caldron has begun to replicate the effects of Bran's caldron, The Pirate captain whose Cord of Wind calls the elementals back inside after use, the Pancrea pipe that allows mortals who smoke from it a few extra years of life provided they willingly serve its master. Not to mention the Abyssal Necromancer whose infamous for having both the only working Crucible of Tarim for miles... but can do things with it that have even the Sidereals shaking their heads and wondering how.
(note that I'm ignoring the balance in some of these things to come up with ideas that could be done). Instead its just 'more ways to hit and hurt people'.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Writers' time, and the space for writing, is limited.
Remember how in 2nd ed Sidereal had next to no charms? How broken Lunars were? How Solars had more MA than anything else? Those ties together.
Evocations are basically a surefire way of saying that the rest of the setting and charms will be no-existent, and all of that for a gimmick that goes against everything exalted are.
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Wut. None of that is true, like, at all. 2e Sidereals had "next to no charms" because their fluff is that creating charms for them was that their charmset was closed, and creating new charms was impossible, and even then, the devs wound up inventing Astrology charms for them anyway when they wanted to write new charms. Similarly, the Lunars weren't mechanically broken, just bland Silver Solars due to a lack of a proper theme to define them. Also, Solars didn't have more Martial Arts than anything else; they actually had less MA than Sidereals did (and in a Second Age game, good luck convincing a Sidereal to teach you SMA anyway).
Similarly, Evocations won't take away from anything else; if anything, the rest of the setting and charms are going to be even bigger than in 2e. They're not going to take away from the rest of your character, either, unless you make a conscious decision to do so; the "Solar XP" mechanic the devs mentioned a while back, and then confirmed a week or two ago (which is an extra source of XP to spend on Evocations, Martial Arts Styles, Sorcery, Attributes, or Abilities) means that if you want to pick up Evocations, you don't have to sacrifice your advancement in your native charmset.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
No, Lunars were mechanically broken, Solars had waaaaaayyyy too much MA compared to anything else, and Sidereal didn't need to create new charms for them to have new or more charms. Remember how almost everything was taken from 1st ed because they had no time because MA?
Are you seriously arguing that having free xp for SPECIAL weapons will mean that anyone ever won't use the FREE XP, and as such that it won't end up in those weapons just being boring tacked on "one in a million"?
Or that the free exp and charms won't mean that /almost all the charm will be evocations?/, while the sorcery will, once again, end up being a big flat "oh, well, we'll do more next edition".
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- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm also interested that it's Solar xp [1]. Man, sucks to be you if you want to play a Lunar, Sidereal or Dragonblood. Not only are you paying more xp for your Charms, but Solars are getting twice as much xp as you on top of that. Makes you wonder why anyone would bother to play anyone else.
Having a core splat is one thing. Bending the entire setting to revolve around that core splat is another entirely. The latter is not a good thing.
[1] Reminds me of "Solar Circle Sorcery", actually. Gee, I hear you ask, what about those Primordials who had it first, and who fit the Terrestrial-Celestial-"X-ial" Circle naming scheme? Well, Solars are obviously much better, the devs reply, and it's not like that would be a thematic sign of how potent the Solar Exalted are, that they can reach the tier of sorcerous power previously attainable only by the titans themselves, would it?
Having a core splat is one thing. Bending the entire setting to revolve around that core splat is another entirely. The latter is not a good thing.
[1] Reminds me of "Solar Circle Sorcery", actually. Gee, I hear you ask, what about those Primordials who had it first, and who fit the Terrestrial-Celestial-"X-ial" Circle naming scheme? Well, Solars are obviously much better, the devs reply, and it's not like that would be a thematic sign of how potent the Solar Exalted are, that they can reach the tier of sorcerous power previously attainable only by the titans themselves, would it?
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Can you cite sources that they copied due to time? From my understanding, the copied due to not understanding the new system. Similarly, given the design format for Sidereals, making new charms was/is problematic. Also, Sids were broken as fuck, which makes it very difficult to design new charms, because you can't base them off anything or slot them in. The only time when Sidereal charms would seem to be really on the table would be post 2.5, which wasn't going to happen because 3rd ed.
Lunars had mechanical problems, but at least they did have a couple good builds. The issue for them, as stated by the developers, was largely theme: they didn't have one, and so making charms to fit the theme was an exercise in frustration. They even said that their goal would have been to largely re-write Lunars, and then get on their charms. But, again, 3rd ed.
Solar's did have a lot of MA, though I'd attribute that more to the fact that SH style was, for a long time, decidedly a third tier combat ability for Solars(Archery being the gold standard, followed by Melee). That plus the fact that SH style had a definite theme made it both easy to design for and attractive.
Or you could actually read his post, where he says that it can be spent on "(which is an extra source of XP to spend on Evocations, Martial Arts Styles, Sorcery, Attributes, or Abilities) "
Yes, you can spend the XP on evocations. You can also spend it on 4 other things, so I'm not sure where you're getting that the xp is restricted to evocations.
For Christ's Sake, I realize Nicknumbers can be bad, but that's no reason to argue poorly. Or to make me defend his points.
That would suck if it was true. Luckly Solar Xp is the name, but any exalt gets it. Non exalts do not.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
You just agreed with me, didn't you? "It was hard", and "by the time they could have done it they no longer had time".
Yup, strapped for time they used doing MA.
What about Throw, the fourth-tier? Or about all the ability charms, which were in fact the real core of exaltation? MA pet of was done instead.
Yes, i did read that post. Even if they have decided to scrap 'you need abilities to learn charms' (which i can't remember offhand if they did), it doesn't matter at all, because abilities are simply thing you get a minimum of to have the right charm multipliers of, and both them and attributes are really limited.
What the real thing is, you get charms (evocation) on top of charm (normal XP), which is just simply better.
I also doubt you are trying to say Evocations are simply not better than non-cap-breaking ability points, and until i see actually well-done sorcery i won't think about it.
You just need to read his posts. Or yours, because you basically repeated what i said at first.
One of the first things they said about Solar XP is "It's not just for Solars, that's just the name."
No I didn't. Here's a clue: look at the reasons why I suggest things weren't done. Surprisingly, none of them mention MA. Because 2.5 wasn't delayed because of Martial Arts. It was delayed because nobody wants to to massive amounts of work for free.
Honestly, if you want to look for the real culprit, it was likely money, not MA.
How many Martial arts did they produce in the time when they were talking about Lunar Errata? I don't remember any.
Ok, I guess that's not entirely fair. I mean, they did do 2.5, which included a bunch of MA charms(because combat charm rewrites). Still, they didn't touch the vast majority of martial arts, plus Lunar errata wasn't even scheduled, to my knowledge, to begin until later that year.
Actually, technically those charms all fall into the Proper Solar charm category: in first Edition, they would have been brawl charms, from my understanding.
So perhaps you could actually use a refersher on what the fuck you're talking about.
So, basically, if we disregard a bunch of things, assume everything is going to be shit, and assume we know how the systems are going to work, then we can conclude that things will be shit. Sounds somewhat flimsy.
No I didn't repeat you. You can tell because I didn't blame MA for something that was not it's fault.
Kylar
In Training Forever
- Location
- Canada
To expand on Solar XP a bit, that was the name Holden or Hatewheel used back during the Kickstarter. They went on to say, no it is not a solar only thing when certain overly pessimistic individuals assumed it was a solar only thing. It's also not called that anymore, and seems to have changed (just drop the damn secrecy wall already!)
Look, Aleph, I can understand you lack of enthusiasm for 3e, and the reasons behind it, but your endless pessimism grates. It gets worse when, well, you use second hand information and immediately take the worst possible interruption of it. I think it safe to say that different splat XP costs are gone (since everyone hated those). Equally so, 2e's 'only Solars matter' is probably gone.
And as for your 'evocations are the new martial arts' rant, there's one fairly core difference: mainly, that there isn't a straightjacket on evocation structure. It is not a single tree of charms that you need to make all of to have the style function as needed, you could just add one or two to an artifact. Further, not all artifacts have evocations (power armor was called out on this in particular) and we know there are baseline artifact stats without any powers added to them whatsoever.
So could it get as bad as you say? Possibly. On the other hand, stagnation was choking 2e to death, so I'm not going to begrudge the devs the chance to do new things. The last time they really got to do that, we got Infernals and Shards. I will begrudge them the FUCKING SECRECY WALL, since dammit, I want to have a conversation with some actual facts behind it, and not two sides slinging stuff that may or may not be relevant, which is all both 3e's detractors and supports can do till it actually comes out, or we get some actual system information.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
.....
Because they worked to do MA instead, yes. I am talking about priorities.
Currently, they are making 3 trees of evocations for each types of weapons. You are yourself saying they aren't working for free. Are you seeing the contradiction yet?
Or maybe you could notice that they are all MA charms instead of being Dodge, investigation or any other abilities, meaning that they tried really hard to push two dozen different visions of MA instead of trying to make cohesive abilities.
Or we can assume that charms for Solaroids >>>>>>>> Abilities or attributes, because abilities or attributes are things that anyone can get.
And if Evocations for Solaroids are not that superior to abilties and attributes? this means that terrestrial or celestial ones would be flat out worse.
You repeated me, as you said it was because of lack of time and money and you agreed that charm designers can't do hundred of different new things per splat as it's hard.
You are just ignoring that they are currently doing just that for evocation, which bodes horribly for the allocation of time and money for everything else.
Romantic_Kaiju
Romantic Kaiju
- Location
- National Battlefield
Right I was re-reading through Core, Saw the Hearthstone Rules, and well we used Heartstones as power sources, and forgot about the ability to provide motes, so
Is this Per Tick, Action, Long tick, or hour?
I think the recovery rate is per Action but I am not Sure.
Exalted Core Page 113 said:
Is this Per Tick, Action, Long tick, or hour?
I think the recovery rate is per Action but I am not Sure.
Its per hour,
Sidereals had next to no charms because they were deliberately designed that way, Lunars were broken because animals sucked, shapeshifting was useless and their charms were just a silver copypaste of Solar charms and Solars had more MA than anything else because their charms were in highest demand and they had fewer problems than the other splats, and thus were easier to write for, none of which has anything to do with time or word count.
What does have to do with time constraints is that Sidereal charms were probably copypasted from first edition without proper revisions in order to get the book out by its deadlines, but since Onyx Path has shifted to a print on demand model, there are no printing and distribution deadlines. The writers can take all the time they need, as evidenced by the fact that the Exalted third edition corebook was at one time supposed to come out last October, and is still not out yet. Also, the corebook has different writers doing Solar charms, Martial Arts and Evocations. Time is a completely irrelevant issue.
Evocations are part of the word count budgeted to Artifacts. Setting material and Charms belong in different chapters, and thus get different word count budgets. If Evocations cut down on anything, it'd be the number of Artifacts contained in the book.
You say this is true, but you have fuck all to back this up, as opposed to a decent amount of information to counter your accusation( for example, the fact that no one besides you seems to have ever heard of this before). Therefore, I'm going to take the stunning strategy of not believing crazy rantings I hear on the internet.
Hell, they spent a lot of time on Alchemicals and Infernals. Clearly, this means that these two splats were the cause of all of 2ed problems.
They're also spending time on the setting. Clearly, this means that the setting is ruining Exalted.
Also, do you have a source for the three trees of evocations?
Because obviously if an ability gets more charms, that means it is choking the lofe out of the others. You know, Solar Melee has a tone of charms. And the Infernals got a couple whole charmsets. Clearly, infernal charms and Solar combat charms RUINED 2ED FOREVA 11!!!!!!!!
In second edition, anyone can get an excellency. Clearly, this means that excellencies are shit.
Oh, wait, no, that's not true.
Uhhh....well, to even cleave closer to your points, in second edition anyone can get abilities and attributes, therefore those things are shit. Oh, wait, still no. It turns out that Abilities and Attributes make it generally easier to take advantage of your charms. In fact, this is so much the case that have +1-2 in an ability + attribute is seen as a significant advantage.
Moreover, as I would like to point out, we don't know how much things are going to cost.
Finally, if you aren't getting abilities and attributes with your Solar XP, then you're spending regular xp on them, in which case you're getting less charms.
Or, it could mean that your understanding of the mechanics of Exalted is on the same level as Aristotle's understanding of Special Relativity. Given your other rantings, that's what I'm taking from this.
No I didn't, and you can tell this because I wasn't attributing what went wrong to
I'm saying that early problems can largely be laid at the feat of people who didn't know what they they were doing. And while later on they lacked the time to fix earlier things/make new content, the time that was used/was available was not spent on martial arts. Analogy: I have 10 dollars, and I want to buy a 3 items(a hat, an apple, and a wallet), but they are all 10 dollars each. I buy the hat. In this case, to then blame the lack of a wallet on the apple is somewhat absurd.
No, I'm just not railing against things that that I apparently have no knowledge of like some Moon Landing Conspiracy theorist.
Edit: As an analogy for this situation, there's a court case, when victim Tom was killed. You are maintaining that, due to the evidence, he was killed by pistol round to the head fired from a specific gun, wielded by this guy named Bob. I'm agreeing that he was killed by a pistol round to the head from a specific gun, because that's obvious. I don't agree that Bob did it, especially because you haven't linked Bob to the gun, nor given a reason for him to kill Tom except that he has never liked Tom.
Edit2: A bit of confirmation from a developer on another forum: during the time lunar Errata was being considered, it took him about a weekend to slap together a MA. His estimate for Lunar Errata was 2-3 months, and that would likely involve the team, rather than one person. Those numbers seem substantially different, and I do not think we received nearly enough Martial Arts Styles over the course of 2ed as a whole to offset that.
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Revlid's Essays: Lore Charms
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
Fascinating though it is to watch people arguing over the merits or failings of something no-one in this thread has actually seen, I think I might as well try to start a new topic. So, Lore Charms.
In previous editions, the split between Lore and Occult was essentially one of Humanities and Sciences. That is to say, Lore covered things like geography, history, myth, philosophy, literature, law, knowledge of the arts*, and so on. Occult, meanwhile, covered things like alchemy, astrology, geomancy, weather-working, contacting spirits, etc - the sorts of things that essentially translate to 'hard' sciences in Creation.
*as opposed to Performance, which covered their practicalities
This split wasn't well-communicated, and often wasn't handled at all, but in theory I like it. It's a clear and intuitive divide, and Occult being a trait that would be called Science in a modern game is a nice nod to the way Exalted tends to say one thing and do another, for deliberate effect. It might well be set aside in 3e, in favour of a new definition, but we'll see.
Unfortunately, Lore Charms didn't quite live up to the supposed nature of their Ability. It seems the writers just had a bit of a brain fart, and settled on dumping all the "weird Essence shit" into there, since what the fuck else were they supposed to do with Arts & Humanities magic when "writing", "performing arts", and "making stuff" are already covered by other Abilities?
Well, I thought I might as well give it a go. Sufficient examples follow.
Instant Expert Intuition
There is no such thing as useless knowledge. Calling on a thousand tidbits of information, the Solar pieces together a specialty in any purely knowledge-based field of an Ability, which lasts for this Charm's duration. With greater skill in Lore, the Solar may apply these specialties to practical purposes as well, intuiting sword-technique from half-remembered stories and old fencing manuals.
Knack-Imparting Advice
With a quick tip or distant piece of insight, the Solar grants another character a temporary specialty similar to the one produced by the previous technique. True philosopher-kings can grant enlightened characters temporary access to Solar Charms which he knows and they qualify for, though maintaining this benevolent guidance is exhausting for the Solar.
Heart-Shoring Proverb Prana
The Solar's advice takes on a spiritual weight, bolstering the wills of those he encourages in the face of fear and unnatural temptation.
Reason Opens Akasha
All the knowledge in the world is there for the taking, if one but applies oneself. The Lawgiver pulls knowledge seemingly out of nowhere, his sleeping mind combining thousands of minuscule clues and intuitive leaps to come to a conclusion.
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Faultless Recollection
Rifling through his mind like the pages of a book, the Solar recalls any past event in perfect detail, allowing him to re-examine it, and detect any magic that might have twisted his memory.
Mental Palace Method
The Lawgiver learns to construct worlds within his mind through meditation, a mind-castle of perfect figments where he may train against imagined opponents, test designs and plans, or simply relax in his own thoughts. He may use this technique while unconscious to lucidly dream, defending against sleep-altering magic and making sure no hours are wasted.
One Mind, Two Thoughts
The Solar's reasoning is ordered beyond human limits, allowing him to hold multiple simultaneous trains of thought without interrupting or distracting himself in the slightest.
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Harmonious Academic Methodology
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in knowledge. The scholarly answer to Tiger-Warrior Training Technique allows the Lawgiver to swiftly instruct his pupils in all the skills necessary for an intellectual calling, whether they wish to become artisans, doctors, or teachers themselves.
Discourse-Encouraging Lecture
The greatest thinkers present their ideas with brilliance and rhetoric. This expands the previous technique, allowing the Solar to pass on social arts like debate, presentation, politics and psychology.
Enlightened Scholar Curriculum
The Lawgiver learns how best to communicate his mystical knowledge to pupils capable of harnessing it, and can even teach the best of his mortal pupils to awaken their Essence.
Lesson-Within-Lesson Understanding
The Solar can now encode his more direct education with moral lessons that teach his students how to most properly apply that knowledge. As it is subtly worked into the information he conveys, only those who refuse his wisdom in its entirety remain ignorant of the true lesson he was trying to impart.
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Truth-Girding Announcement
Infusing his words with the celerity to outpace any lie, the Solar spreads some idea or discovery around a social group. Within days it becomes a topic of great discussion. Whether an intellectual fad or a blasphemous controversy, everyone hears of the idea, and wishes to know more.
Lethe-Banishing Brilliance
The Solar translates the idea popularized by the previous Charm into a delightful fable, fascinating symbol or pithy proverb, ensuring that it will never be forgotten by that group, and the essentials of its meaning remain entirely understandable even generations hence.
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Chaos-Repelling Pattern
Truth is order, and so is anathema to madness. Embodying the wisdom of law, the Solar shines with a light that causes the world around him to be treated as part of Creation for all purposes.
Wyld-Banishing Technique
The Solar determines the world, pressing the golden seal of law and the dagger of true knowledge against the unsubstantiated absurdities of Chaos. An area of Wyld-tainted land miles across is cleansed into pure Creation, and any of its features that contravene the world's laws cease to function as such.
Filling the Map's Corners
The Lawgiver has the authority to scribe the true history and shape of the world. The protestations of shapeless natives matter not. She can now use the previous technique to reshape the tainted region, dictating its geography, climate and even apparent history as he pleases.
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Well-Earned Philosopher Crown
Genius is known on sight. It becomes unthinkable to question the Solar's wisdom in his fields of expertise, such that those who read his dissertations accept even obvious mistakes or lies as brilliant insights.
Erudition's Authority
It is wise to acknowledge greater wisdom. The previous technique expands, causing all to assume that the Solar knows best in all fields, no matter what he does, and allowing him to claim any authority or permissions his supposed expertise would grant him.
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Mapmaker's Cunning Eye
The eye of the sun shines down on the world entire, stretching it out before him like a gameboard. The Solar intuits the geography and general climate of an entire region from a glance at a mountain's slope or river's path, reasoning out a map in her mind's eye.
Tracing the Dragon's Back
The Solar's mental-map reveals magic affecting the region, such as otherworld taint, sorcerous enchantment, mystically-hidden regions, and so on. Though the previous technique could detect demesnes, she can now work out whether they've been capped, and even the general design of the manse.
Antiquity-Answering Sagacity
A single example of a region or group's history (however current) is enough for the Solar to deduce the broad strokes of the rest of it, stretching back as far as she can manage, piecing together the myriad chains of events that must have led to this pass.
Secret History Savant
The previous technique now allows the Solar to apprehend even those details that reasoned study could not approach, uncovering concealed motives and detecting the hidden hand of supernatural actors.
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Immanent Solar Glory
Even the least educated Solars can understand the nature of harmony, expanding their mote pools and allowing them to regain motes more quickly while working to govern, reform, inspire or otherwise improve or rule a given group.
Twofold Superior Philosophy
The Lawgiver uses his manifest genius to devise a special ideology, better than anything that preceded it. He can impart this righteous credo to others in the form of an intimacy, which alters the virtues of those who bear it accordingly.
In previous editions, the split between Lore and Occult was essentially one of Humanities and Sciences. That is to say, Lore covered things like geography, history, myth, philosophy, literature, law, knowledge of the arts*, and so on. Occult, meanwhile, covered things like alchemy, astrology, geomancy, weather-working, contacting spirits, etc - the sorts of things that essentially translate to 'hard' sciences in Creation.
*as opposed to Performance, which covered their practicalities
This split wasn't well-communicated, and often wasn't handled at all, but in theory I like it. It's a clear and intuitive divide, and Occult being a trait that would be called Science in a modern game is a nice nod to the way Exalted tends to say one thing and do another, for deliberate effect. It might well be set aside in 3e, in favour of a new definition, but we'll see.
Unfortunately, Lore Charms didn't quite live up to the supposed nature of their Ability. It seems the writers just had a bit of a brain fart, and settled on dumping all the "weird Essence shit" into there, since what the fuck else were they supposed to do with Arts & Humanities magic when "writing", "performing arts", and "making stuff" are already covered by other Abilities?
Well, I thought I might as well give it a go. Sufficient examples follow.
Instant Expert Intuition
There is no such thing as useless knowledge. Calling on a thousand tidbits of information, the Solar pieces together a specialty in any purely knowledge-based field of an Ability, which lasts for this Charm's duration. With greater skill in Lore, the Solar may apply these specialties to practical purposes as well, intuiting sword-technique from half-remembered stories and old fencing manuals.
Knack-Imparting Advice
With a quick tip or distant piece of insight, the Solar grants another character a temporary specialty similar to the one produced by the previous technique. True philosopher-kings can grant enlightened characters temporary access to Solar Charms which he knows and they qualify for, though maintaining this benevolent guidance is exhausting for the Solar.
Heart-Shoring Proverb Prana
The Solar's advice takes on a spiritual weight, bolstering the wills of those he encourages in the face of fear and unnatural temptation.
Reason Opens Akasha
All the knowledge in the world is there for the taking, if one but applies oneself. The Lawgiver pulls knowledge seemingly out of nowhere, his sleeping mind combining thousands of minuscule clues and intuitive leaps to come to a conclusion.
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Faultless Recollection
Rifling through his mind like the pages of a book, the Solar recalls any past event in perfect detail, allowing him to re-examine it, and detect any magic that might have twisted his memory.
Mental Palace Method
The Lawgiver learns to construct worlds within his mind through meditation, a mind-castle of perfect figments where he may train against imagined opponents, test designs and plans, or simply relax in his own thoughts. He may use this technique while unconscious to lucidly dream, defending against sleep-altering magic and making sure no hours are wasted.
One Mind, Two Thoughts
The Solar's reasoning is ordered beyond human limits, allowing him to hold multiple simultaneous trains of thought without interrupting or distracting himself in the slightest.
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Harmonious Academic Methodology
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in knowledge. The scholarly answer to Tiger-Warrior Training Technique allows the Lawgiver to swiftly instruct his pupils in all the skills necessary for an intellectual calling, whether they wish to become artisans, doctors, or teachers themselves.
Discourse-Encouraging Lecture
The greatest thinkers present their ideas with brilliance and rhetoric. This expands the previous technique, allowing the Solar to pass on social arts like debate, presentation, politics and psychology.
Enlightened Scholar Curriculum
The Lawgiver learns how best to communicate his mystical knowledge to pupils capable of harnessing it, and can even teach the best of his mortal pupils to awaken their Essence.
Lesson-Within-Lesson Understanding
The Solar can now encode his more direct education with moral lessons that teach his students how to most properly apply that knowledge. As it is subtly worked into the information he conveys, only those who refuse his wisdom in its entirety remain ignorant of the true lesson he was trying to impart.
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Truth-Girding Announcement
Infusing his words with the celerity to outpace any lie, the Solar spreads some idea or discovery around a social group. Within days it becomes a topic of great discussion. Whether an intellectual fad or a blasphemous controversy, everyone hears of the idea, and wishes to know more.
Lethe-Banishing Brilliance
The Solar translates the idea popularized by the previous Charm into a delightful fable, fascinating symbol or pithy proverb, ensuring that it will never be forgotten by that group, and the essentials of its meaning remain entirely understandable even generations hence.
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Chaos-Repelling Pattern
Truth is order, and so is anathema to madness. Embodying the wisdom of law, the Solar shines with a light that causes the world around him to be treated as part of Creation for all purposes.
Wyld-Banishing Technique
The Solar determines the world, pressing the golden seal of law and the dagger of true knowledge against the unsubstantiated absurdities of Chaos. An area of Wyld-tainted land miles across is cleansed into pure Creation, and any of its features that contravene the world's laws cease to function as such.
Filling the Map's Corners
The Lawgiver has the authority to scribe the true history and shape of the world. The protestations of shapeless natives matter not. She can now use the previous technique to reshape the tainted region, dictating its geography, climate and even apparent history as he pleases.
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Well-Earned Philosopher Crown
Genius is known on sight. It becomes unthinkable to question the Solar's wisdom in his fields of expertise, such that those who read his dissertations accept even obvious mistakes or lies as brilliant insights.
Erudition's Authority
It is wise to acknowledge greater wisdom. The previous technique expands, causing all to assume that the Solar knows best in all fields, no matter what he does, and allowing him to claim any authority or permissions his supposed expertise would grant him.
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Mapmaker's Cunning Eye
The eye of the sun shines down on the world entire, stretching it out before him like a gameboard. The Solar intuits the geography and general climate of an entire region from a glance at a mountain's slope or river's path, reasoning out a map in her mind's eye.
Tracing the Dragon's Back
The Solar's mental-map reveals magic affecting the region, such as otherworld taint, sorcerous enchantment, mystically-hidden regions, and so on. Though the previous technique could detect demesnes, she can now work out whether they've been capped, and even the general design of the manse.
Antiquity-Answering Sagacity
A single example of a region or group's history (however current) is enough for the Solar to deduce the broad strokes of the rest of it, stretching back as far as she can manage, piecing together the myriad chains of events that must have led to this pass.
Secret History Savant
The previous technique now allows the Solar to apprehend even those details that reasoned study could not approach, uncovering concealed motives and detecting the hidden hand of supernatural actors.
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Immanent Solar Glory
Even the least educated Solars can understand the nature of harmony, expanding their mote pools and allowing them to regain motes more quickly while working to govern, reform, inspire or otherwise improve or rule a given group.
Twofold Superior Philosophy
The Lawgiver uses his manifest genius to devise a special ideology, better than anything that preceded it. He can impart this righteous credo to others in the form of an intimacy, which alters the virtues of those who bear it accordingly.
Since this seems to be a bit tautologous, what time frame are you imagining? Since the group/region's inception or some fixed amount?
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
It's based on a Lore + Intelligence roll. Might be (successes) centuries, might be based on generations, might be based on how many distinctly different iterations the group has gone through - if I was actually writing this Charm, I'd try to fine-tune it so that a Solar loremaster could get hints of the First Age or the Usurpation from pretty much any group or region, but mostly couldn't go further back than the Shogunate, and was restricted to Realm-era stuff for genuinely complete material. Happily, I'm not, so I can just toss this shit out like a stablehand.