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General Exalted Thread

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I believe it'll get sent out to everyone in certain tiers (not just those who got to ask for charms), and will be available to the public a bit later.
I might be wrong, mind.
 
Dif said:
The ideal state of Ex3 seems to be opening the book and imagining all the cool potential things you could do with it, skimming a few Charms, then setting it back on the shelf so you can get into another forum argument about the proper thematic space of Lunars.

That the writers of the book share in this viewpoint is not very surprising in the long run.
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Damn, Dogstar Rumination was no joke: it was meant to warn us!

If you search for the right beginning of words, you will surely find M-E-R-K-A-T S-T-E-A-L T-H-E S-P-O-T-L-I-G-H-T P-R-A-N-A.

WE HAVE BEEN TAKEN FOR FOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLSSSSSS!!!!!!
Nonagon said:
I don't think Holden or Morke ever sat down and wrote down their Exalted 3e Bible with an actual design document outlining how and why they were going to do what they did. The book feels way too unpolished to be the product of anything but unfocused energy.

I do think they basically rejected the idea that this question you've proposed was meaningful or helpful, though. Even if they'd had an actual editor, I don't think that'd have been "clarified."

The design philosophy of Exalted 3e would probably be best described as "every subsystem should feel qualitatively different." Social interaction doesn't resemble combat, craft isn't anything like sorcerous workings, etc. This also applies to Charmsets: Melee and Brawl feel different, Single Point is very distinct, Dodge versus Resistance, Presence versus Socialize, etc.

It's a very crunch-focused system, which comes to the table with an understanding that universal resolution mechanics (beyond dice/successes) aren't what it wants to do. Each subsystem is an attempt to create a fairly rigorous set of mechanics that cover most of what needs to be covered (e.g. you have stuff like Go To Ground and Hold At Bay), with the various goals that one typically expects from RPG subsystems (results you can parse quickly, systems that don't break down under a light breeze, mechanics that don't result in weird backwards behavior, etc). If there was a guiding principle of design, it was that there shouldn't be such a guiding principle of design: the "texture" of Investigation and Awareness should be different.
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To copy something from one of my past posts(The one about the interwiev):
The devs essentially say that they intentionally meant for the their charm writing to be evocative, which might explain the "natural language" problem. They also say they tended to discover the need for new core systems as they were writing the charms, which might be a contributing factor to the sprawling nature of the systems and the odd placement of some subsystems and sidebars.
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You can read it as: they were making shit up as they made the charms, and then they hadn't bothered to clean anything up.

The Sandman said:
You probably do want physics, chemistry and biology to work the same in both, though.
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I know some peoples that would like for such things to be laxer in the bedroom, if you know what i mean.

notanautomaton said:
The backer charms are out, and from what I hear they're 3op5me.
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I am a backer, and i haven't received any link.

I am waving my fists in anger in random directions right now! GRAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

Also, something more serious, @Sanctaphrax : i am slowly creating a more detailed variation of your craft rewrite, mostly of the mundane craft part. I need it because the Discordians (Which i am finally beginning to convert, weeeeeee) have two thirds of the craft charms using mundane crafts and resources, which would means that i would have to gut them in an eventual conversion.

Of course, i can enlarge Pet Rock Promotion as much as i want (I love that charm), but the Discordians having only as craft the ability to pet in existence things seem a bit reductive. Also silly.
 
Reading the pet tree in survival. Why is getting willpower from playing with your pet magic? That should totally be a thing even mortals can do.
 
Aranfan said:
Reading the pet tree in survival. Why is getting willpower from playing with your pet magic? That should totally be a thing even mortals can do.
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They seriously made WP recovery from playing with a cat a Solar Charm? Really? Since that's an empirically demonstrated thing IRL I guess we're all Solars.
 
pheonix89 said:
They seriously made WP recovery from playing with a cat a Solar Charm? Really? Since that's an empirically demonstrated thing IRL I guess we're all Solars.
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The standard source of regenerating willpower is a full night's sleep or achieving a major personal goal. Playing with cats is relaxing and all, but not to that extent.
 
pheonix89 said:
They seriously made WP recovery from playing with a cat a Solar Charm? Really? Since that's an empirically demonstrated thing IRL I guess we're all Solars.
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Quoting from Spirit Tied Pet, among other benefits it includes:

Power-Renewing Bond: The Solar draws strength from her familiar bond. Once per day, through interaction with her familiar, the Exalt may draw a single point of Willpower as a simple action lasting at least a few seconds. This contact renews the Solar's mental energies and can even negate a -1 crippling penalty to the Exalt's social influence actions. The Solar may only use this power once per day, no matter how many familiars she has.
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I mean sure, only a few seconds I can see being magic. But playing with a pet for between a few minutes to half an hour should totally let a mortal get back a point of willpower.
 
notanautomaton said:
The backer charms are out, and from what I hear they're 3op5me.
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Praise the Unconquered Sun for the miracles he has showered upon his chosen! Let us show our gratitude with sacred vows to be executioners of his terrible wrath and righteous fury. We shall hunt down his enemies and slaughter them without mercy, plucking out their still-beating hearts and offering them up as sacrifices.

Someone must have been watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom while writing charms.
 
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Omicron said:
The standard source of regenerating willpower is a full night's sleep or achieving a major personal goal. Playing with cats is relaxing and all, but not to that extent.
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It's good enough to have a statistically significant effect on beating cancer IIRC.
Aranfan said:
Quoting from Spirit Tied Pet, among other benefits it includes:

I mean sure, only a few seconds I can see being magic. But playing with a pet for between a few minutes to half an hour should totally let a mortal get back a point of willpower.
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One WP, once a day, for half an hour of playing with a pet? Yeah, that looks about right for the demonstrated medical benefits assuming the WP was used on some roll or another.
 
Anyways, somebody dumped a text version of the PDF on 4chan.

It's...not terribly high quality writing.
 
Holden said:
New Keyword: Apocryphal: A Charm with this keyword is non-canonical and not considered to be an actual Charm of the Solar Exalted.
On the Apocryphal Keyword
The apocryphal keyword is handed out to Charms that
are narratively unbalanced or outside the functional capacity of Solar powers. This does not discount them for
your individual games; you may use or discard an apocryphal Charm just as easily as you may discard or use
any standard Exalted Charm as it fits your game.
The main limitation of Solar Charms is that they require
a very standard method and approach, springing from
knowably human actions. But Solar Charms are by no
means hidebound; the Charms of the social Solar and the
occult Solar show some of the strange and interesting
conversions possible for those with Solar Essence.
However, you will also notice that such Charms take
a tremendous amount of buy-in and cultivation, and
a strange Ability such as Occult slips into the uncanny
much more easily than Socialize. The strangest Solar
Charms build out of a valid demonstration of the Solar's
capacity with any certain Ability before becoming deviant in any way — and even then, the most eclectic Solar
Charms are still anchored heavily within the limitations
of human technique and myth-hero logic. Which is to
say, a Solar Charm will never involve taking your eye out
and hurling it over the rooftops so you can spy on the
streets below.
So apocryphal Charms are thus because they violate
the tenets of skill or technique that make Solar Charms
allowable. Just be aware that if you allow apocryphal
Charms without discernment, you will find it harder to
discern Solars from some of the stranger Exalted that
appear later in the edition.
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Hey guys, we took out the one limit we left on Solars, k?
 
notanautomaton said:
Hey guys, we took out the one limit we left on Solars, k?
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... no, not really?

"You are allowed to homebrew stuff for your own table that violates the themes of the game. Here are some non-canonical charms that also violate the themes of the game, and that you can include at your table if you want to."

edit: and, look, there are four of them. Out of something like eighty, I think. I don't think this heralds a terrifying new era of charm design.
 
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notanautomaton said:
Hey guys, we took out the one limit we left on Solars, k?
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I don't see a problem with it, as long as this was clearly what the backer actually wanted. These are supposed to be fulfillments of backer requests, so if somebody said "my game is going to be all about mecha battles, so I want a charm that makes a giant solar warstrider out of essence" and the devs said "that's not really a charm that fits in with the themes of 3E, nor can be possibly balanced at less than E6, but here you go."
 
Two Athletics Charms:

Throw up to a horse and rider worth of weight two range bands, and create an army of clones by running really fast. Both are incredibly stupid.

And every Archery charm is a variation of explosive arrow.
DayDreamer said:
I don't see a problem with it, as long as this was clearly what the backer actually wanted. These are supposed to be fulfillments of backer requests, so if somebody said "my game is going to be all about mecha battles, so I want a charm that makes a giant solar warstrider out of essence" and the devs said "that's not really a charm that fits in with the themes of 3E, nor can be possibly balanced at less than E6, but here you go."
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From what I've heard every charm with the keyword is in Sail, so I'll let you know how it works when I get there.
 
Oh. For Hope, I want her to have that charm that lets Solars look like Abyssals. But I there isn't one in 3rd yet. Help?
 
DayDreamer said:
I don't see a problem with it, as long as this was clearly what the backer actually wanted. These are supposed to be fulfillments of backer requests, so if somebody said "my game is going to be all about mecha battles, so I want a charm that makes a giant solar warstrider out of essence" and the devs said "that's not really a charm that fits in with the themes of 3E, nor can be possibly balanced at less than E6, but here you go."
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Its still patently ridiculous to introduce a "Homebrew-OK" keyword rather than just... explain it like a normal person in a sidebar or something.
 
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