Exalted 2e - Considering playing a Lunar

[Talya]

We're playing a mixed-exalts game, and I'm considering trying my hand at a Lunar Exalt. I'm thinking feline, dexterity combat focused, with a bit of social charm thrown in. I have never even looked at building a Lunar. Are they mechanically sound compared to Solars? Any tricks to building them?

[Friv]

They are definitely mechanically sound. In a long-running game, you might fall behind a bit by the end due to their higher costs for Charms, but it takes a while for this to become noticeable.

There are a few things to keep in mind when building them, though, because they don't behave like Solars, and a lot of people make certain Solar-style mistakes that cause problems. First, if you can find any thematic justification for it, you want one of your Virtues to be at 5. You can get by with 4, but really 5 is best. This is because each dot in your primary Virtue is worth 8 motes at creation (6 peripheral, 2 personal), and that's the only way to get your mote pool up to a Solar's.

Secondly, watch out on the social Charms. As a rule, a lot of Lunar social Charms kind of suck when there are Solars, or even Sidereals, around. Lunars aren't very good at ruling nations or stuff like that. It's fine in a pure Lunars group, because everyone's on the same Charm scale, but a social Solar in the party will render most of your dreams to ash as he effortlessly strolls past you and mindsways everyone.

With that note, I would recommend going for the subtlety-based Lunar social Charms. The entire Manipulation sub-tree leading up to their perfect defense is great - it's cheap perfect lying, which is awesome, cheap natural mental defenses, a great way to make people not realize you're engaging them in social combat, and then a perfect defense against mind control.

On the fighting front, I would decide how committed you want to be. Generally, at creation, you want to choose between using Deadly Beastman or Relentless Lunar Fury, and buy Charms that are Gift-OK for the former and Fury-OK for the latter. In the long run, you can have both active and be nearly unstoppable, but you're usually better off focusing a bit to start with. You should also take advantage of the fact that you have Dexterity Charms, and start the game with both close combat and ranged Abilities as high as you feel comfortable taking them. That way, you're always good in a fight, not just in one field - one of the huge advantages that Lunars have over Solars, who tend to specialize in one form of combat due to needing to buy five or ten Charms to be valuable.

[Talya]

By social charm, I mean, enough charisma and appearance to be considered a supernatural knockout hottie, not necessarily the ability to manipulate nations.

She's definitely full-moon caste.

[The Demented One]

By social charm, I mean, enough charisma and appearance to be considered a supernatural knockout hottie, not necessarily the ability to manipulate nations.
Grab the Second Appearance Excellency and Perfect Symmetry, and combo them. Between those two charms, you'll be able to hold your own damn well in social combat.

For real combat, Relentless Lunar Fury is second to none. Grab it and a couple of Fury-OK Charms (Golden Tiger Stance and Wasp Sting Blur are favorites), and you can go to town. Likewise with Deadly Beastman Transformation, but less so. Get it, Claws of the Silver Moon, and Armor-Forming Technique, and you can do one hell of a power up sequence–turn on RLF and DBT on the same tick, throw up all your Fury and Gift charms, and have fun for the rest of the battle.

Once you're powered up, you can really get by on nothing but your Dexterity excellency. Getting Flowing Body Evasion is nice, but you can't get it as easily as Solars, so don't fret. Once you do have it, combo it with an excellency, and you've got your basic combat routine. Other neat Lunar combat charms to look towards are Lightning Stroke Attack and Octopus and Spider Barrage. The former lets you cut through any DV, guaranteeing a hit against anything less than a perfect defense, while the latter, combined with some clever shapeshifting, can outperform Iron Whirlwind.

And a general tip: know what the other guys in the circle are making, and build to avoid overlap with them. While a Lunar combat monkey is going to feel completely different from a Solar one, playing a Lunar tracker is going to be no fun if there's a Zenith caste survival nut in the same party.

[Tome]

One key thing to note is that Lunar Charms are a heck of a lot more broad than Solar Charms. Like, really, really broad.

Take The Spider's Trap Door for instance. Prerequisites are Wits 4, Essence 2 and any Wits Excellency. That's pretty darn easy to get. It makes anything you conceal completely undetectable to mortal senses. Anything. That means you can use it to hide a line of text in a contract, hide yourself when evading the Wyld Hunt, camouflage a a unit of troops in the forrest, hide your tracks etc. The downside is that it's a lot easier to see through it than a similar Solar Charm. An Exalt with enhanced senses and a decent MDV is probably going to be able to manage it. Lunars are all about this sort of breadth.

Also, Soak can be a viable defence for Lunars, unlike with Solars. They can get their Soak and HLs sky high fairly easily, reduce essence ping, turn their Soak into Hardness and, most importantly, their healing Charms let them regenerate on a turn-by-turn basis. Seriously, those healing charms are awesome.

I'll second the bit about getting one of your Virtues up to 5 as soon as possible. It really helps.

Lunar Shapeshifting is also ridiculously flexible.

Lunar Social-Fu is decent. It's not Solar stuff, and a lot of it is somewhat obscure, but Lunars can certainly do some interesting things in Social Combat.

Do expect to see a lot less in the way of Perfects in your charms though. The only exception is for attacks, where Lunars have a universal Perfect attack.

Good Gift Charms are Bruise Relief Method + Halting The Scarlet Flow, Armor-Forming Technique and Claws Of The Silver Moon.

If you really want to focus in a particular area, grab the cap raising charm for it. I.E. Relentless Luna Fury, Irresistible Silver Spirit or Inevitable Genius Insight.

Hybrid Body Rearrangement is fun abusable. :smallbiggrin:

[Talya]

Do expect to see a lot less in the way of Perfects in your charms though. The only exception is for attacks, where Lunars have a universal Perfect attack.


Which is this attack?

Looking at this for a build so far:
Full moon caste.
Mental Primary, Physical Secondary, Social Tertiary.
Appearance favored.

Strength 4 (3 starting +1 bonus points(3))
Dexterity 5
Stamina 3 (2 starting, +1 from bonus points(3))
Charisma 2
Manipulation 1
Appearance 4
Perception 4
Intelligence 2
Wits 5

Virtues: Conviction 5, Compassion 1, Valor 3, Temperance 2
Tatoo artifact claws, (standard?) artifact armor, short powerbow
Totem: Leopard
I think i want the deadly beastman transformation warform.

I'm lost on charms...