General Exalted Discussion XVII: Edition of Cascading Years

[Recaiden]

I don't see why Solars shouldn't support other Solars the way Lunars and Sidereals and Dragonblooded do. It's unusual, yes, but it's not bad. You can't always take over the country yourself.

It seems to me that you are supposed to

• Interact with them as fellows or rivals or something. Her Circle is not as powerful as that of the Bull of the North, but there's obvious similarities.
• Use them as an example of what Solars do.
• See that Solars can easily be monstrous people.

[Inspector Valin]

*shrug* The analogy with the Bull kinda works, in the sense of him being our only big predecessor for 'Established Ruling Solar', but this example seems stranger to me. The Bull's rule of the Icewalkers, and later his empire, was all right of conquest stuff. He took over the Icewalker tribes, changed their traditions, and then occupied a large amount of territory through conquest. His control was questionable, predicated as Morke says on his excellence seeing these lands to safety. If you felt the Bull was wrong, fighting him made a ton of sense. That's all muted here. Jiara is Perfect Soul's land, she's from the legitimate royal family and her story is very focused on reclaiming what was rightfully hers. Unless your Solar is even more Pro Realm than mine usually get, there's not a lot of reason to oppose her.

The Bull's existence didn't rule out stories amongst the Icewalkers, or stories about other Solars emerging. If anything, it opened them up: here was this other Solar who is reshaping our way of life around them and everything is changing. Having the Bull around added plot hooks for Icewalker characters. Academically, there's no reason Soul's presence in Jiara shouldn't do the same... but in practice, I'm struggling to think of any that really work. Soul isn't changing Jiara, she's not really trying to change the world in any grand or interesting way that you can get behind on grounds of ideology. She's just being a fairly textbook Glorious Solar Hero, fighting the Realm, freeing her people. That's the role the PCs are supposed to take (If the ST can't think of anything better for them to do.) If she's doing it over here, and is the legitimate ruler no less... why should my characters be doing the same? And for the sake of someone else?

Also, I feel the 'she's questionable and morally flawed' idea hasn't followed through at all thus far. I mean, I hate her guts, but that's just because I find her Exaltation story somewhere between obnoxious and ridiculous. It's hard to get riled up about her actions thus far IC short of reading into stuff (Like her throwing the Realm out being worse for her people in the long run, opening the country up to strikes from its neighbours, potential censorship from Heaven... stuff like that). Perhaps they'll develop that later, but right now I'm really not sensing any controversy, like Yurgen used to get for some of his more questionable tactics.

[HalfTangible]

*shrug* The analogy with the Bull kinda works, in the sense of him being our only big predecessor for 'Established Ruling Solar', but this example seems stranger to me. The Bull's rule of the Icewalkers, and later his empire, was all right of conquest stuff. He took over the Icewalker tribes, changed their traditions, and then occupied a large amount of territory through conquest. His control was questionable, predicated as Morke says on his excellence seeing these lands to safety. If you felt the Bull was wrong, fighting him made a ton of sense. That's all muted here. Jiara is Perfect Soul's land, she's from the legitimate royal family and her story is very focused on reclaiming what was rightfully hers. Unless your Solar is even more Pro Realm than mine usually get, there's not a lot of reason to oppose her.

The Bull's existence didn't rule out stories amongst the Icewalkers, or stories about other Solars emerging. If anything, it opened them up: here was this other Solar who is reshaping our way of life around them and everything is changing. Having the Bull around added plot hooks for Icewalker characters. Academically, there's no reason Soul's presence in Jiara shouldn't do the same... but in practice, I'm struggling to think of any that really work. Soul isn't changing Jiara, she's not really trying to change the world in any grand or interesting way that you can get behind on grounds of ideology. She's just being a fairly textbook Glorious Solar Hero, fighting the Realm, freeing her people. That's the role the PCs are supposed to take (If the ST can't think of anything better for them to do.) If she's doing it over here, and is the legitimate ruler no less... why should my characters be doing the same? And for the sake of someone else?

Also, I feel the 'she's questionable and morally flawed' idea hasn't followed through at all thus far. I mean, I hate her guts, but that's just because I find her Exaltation story somewhere between obnoxious and ridiculous. It's hard to get riled up about her actions thus far IC short of reading into stuff (Like her throwing the Realm out being worse for her people in the long run, opening the country up to strikes from its neighbours, potential censorship from Heaven... stuff like that). Perhaps they'll develop that later, but right now I'm really not sensing any controversy, like Yurgen used to get for some of his more questionable tactics.

She's also a treacherous weasal, a false prophet, and a ruthless bully. She cares about her land to the exclusion of all else, including her friends and neighbors There's plenty to dislike and oppose about this character, and that's assuming you don't want the throne for yourself.

(though imo she'd probably work best as a political enemy rather than a martial one)

[Guancyto]

I don't really see an enormous problem with writing up at least a couple of Solars to be potential allies, or as people in desperate straits that need to be pulled out of a jam. Or if that's not good enough...

If you're a political peer, Perfect Soul is just about perfect for playing the US in an Afghanistan vs USSR scenario where you help turn Perfect Soul's resistance into a devastating quagmire for House Mnemon and then subsequently pull out when she's done fighting them, leaving her to shed a Perfect Tear(tm) amid the utter devastation of what used to be her homeland. (And then breaking with the reference conflict, you subsequently invade it.)

Or, you could steal Jiara's artifacts and subsequently turn the whole endeavor into a giant bust for Mnemon. Perfect Soul will probably die in retribution and the country will still be under the Realm's thumb but hey, you've got the shinies and that's what matters.

Or you could present yourself as a Solar willing to pledge to her cause (hopefully get some sort of sweet honorary nobility title in the process), only to turn on her and throw her out on her ass if she ever shows weakness and take over the country in her stead. You should probably just kill her though, Solar kings-in-exile tend to be pretty troublesome.

If you don't want her as an ally, she's basically begging to be screwed over by a sufficiently sneaky other Solar.

[tonberrian]

Now I want one too.

[Sith_Happens]

But leaving that aside for the moment... what's the point of Jiara when we've got canon characters THIS caught up in it? Are we supposed to replace them with our own? Interract with them as allies?

Depends which side of the screen you're on. As an ST you're just as free to ignore that webpage as anything else in Exalted. Heck, arguably even more so, the actual book is deliberately vague about who the rebel leader is except that she's the heir to the throne.

If you're a player in a game where Perfect Soul is the leader of the Jiaran resistance, then see everything Guancyto said.

[Inspector Valin]

If you're a political peer, Perfect Soul is just about perfect for playing the US in an Afghanistan vs USSR scenario where you help turn Perfect Soul's resistance into a devastating quagmire for House Mnemon and then subsequently pull out when she's done fighting them, leaving her to shed a Perfect Tear(tm) amid the utter devastation of what used to be her homeland. (And then breaking with the reference conflict, you subsequently invade it.)

Or, you could steal Jiara's artifacts and subsequently turn the whole endeavor into a giant bust for Mnemon. Perfect Soul will probably die in retribution and the country will still be under the Realm's thumb but hey, you've got the shinies and that's what matters.

Or you could present yourself as a Solar willing to pledge to her cause (hopefully get some sort of sweet honorary nobility title in the process), only to turn on her and throw her out on her ass if she ever shows weakness and take over the country in her stead. You should probably just kill her though, Solar kings-in-exile tend to be pretty troublesome.

If you don't want her as an ally, she's basically begging to be screwed over by a sufficiently sneaky other Solar.

Hmm...

None of these feel like engaging with the material though. They're work arounds to using Jiara without focusing on Perfect Soul. (And uniformly heel moves)

I mean, to put this into contrast, I like canon NPCs from the Caste and Aspect books. I have no problem with big name NPCs in Exalted. Hell, I'm a Realms fan, I have no problem with big named allied NPCs. My issue comes in when they'd eclipse mine. And I still don't see how to do a story set in Jiara and not to feel eclipsed by the sig circle. They're active, they're defending the traditional values of their culture... there's nothing controversial enough to argue with them about, and unless subsequent material presents them as completely outmatched. (hahaha) they're going to be capable of defending the country perfectly well by themselves.

So why should we care about the country run by heroes that's being defended by them? In other games, or mortal Exalted games, I could kinda see it as you're lower level and they can't be everywhere, but a circle of Solars trying to defend the already Solar led empire?

Depends which side of the screen you're on. As an ST you're just as free to ignore that webpage as anything else in Exalted. Heck, arguably even more so, the actual book is deliberately vague about who the rebel leader is except that she's the heir to the throne.

If you're a player in a game where Perfect Soul is the leader of the Jiaran resistance, then see everything Guancyto said.

I figure this amount of information is leading up towards them publishing something in more depth on the place, and possibly the sigs. Either in The Realm or in Different Skies. If so, that's page count that could've been used on anything else.

[TheCountAlucard]

Mnemon's bust is big enough already, Guancyto - she doesn't need a bigger one.

[Sith_Happens]

I mean, to put this into contrast, I like canon NPCs from the Caste and Aspect books. I have no problem with big name NPCs in Exalted. Hell, I'm a Realms fan, I have no problem with big named allied NPCs. My issue comes in when they'd eclipse mine. And I still don't see how to do a story set in Jiara and not to feel eclipsed by the sig circle. They're active, they're defending the traditional values of their culture... there's nothing controversial enough to argue with them about, and unless subsequent material presents them as completely outmatched. (hahaha) they're going to be capable of defending the country perfectly well by themselves.

So why should we care about the country run by heroes that's being defended by them? In other games, or mortal Exalted games, I could kinda see it as you're lower level and they can't be everywhere, but a circle of Solars trying to defend the already Solar led empire?

Well I'll get back to you on that eventually, since I just joined a game revolving around Jiara in which Perfect Soul exists. Don't know yet whether she's going to have her own Circle though, I guess I could ask.

[Swooper]

Is it just me, or are all Abilities not created equal when it comes to choosing a Supernal? I was planning to choose War for my Dawn character in an upcoming game, but I've noticed that there are no charms above Essence 3 in War... kind of feels like I'd be getting more "bang for the buck" by choosing e.g. Melee as Supernal, since I would be able to access the best charms in War relatively soon anyway. Am I missing something crucial here?

[Guancyto]

Yes and no. Most of the good stuff for all abilities comes at Essence 3, and if you engage in mass combat all the time it could be worthwhile to go War supernal even though there aren't any Ess 5 charms. But yes, they are tacitly discouraging you from doing that. (This is also true for abilities like Ride and Sail.)

Mnemon's bust is big enough already, Guancyto - she doesn't need a bigger one.

Says you!

[Lanaya]

Essence 4 and 5 charms are a bit of a red herring. They have the steepest prerequisites, so you'd assume they're the most important charms, but most of the time they're pretty minor effects that contribute little to the power of your character. There are exceptions - Craft has a huge amount of content at E4-5 which can be pretty powerful, and Aegis of Invincible Might and Nine Aeons Thew are both huge game-changing effects - but for most abilities the difference having E4-5 charms and not having them is psychological. It feels good to have shiny toys with higher essence values tied to them, even if it doesn't change very much in purely rational robot terms.

[Rater202]

I do belive that they stated back a good while ago that the Solar charm trees would be somewhat helixical in nature: small at the top and bottum but big in the middle.

So if the complaint is right, it's the stuff at the top isn't (usually) as useful as the stuff in the middle? Smaller bonuses? That kind of makes sense with the stated structure, I think.

Hypothetically if they ever published official "Elder Essence" charms, I'd imagine that they'd follow a similar scheme.(Assuming they kept to the "instead of growing up, they grow out or make things easier)

I imagine that having a bunch of essence 5 charms might be collectively worth it though, depending on how the "multiple charms per action" thing works, if you play long enough to acquire them.

[Guancyto]

There are trees where, if you want to specialize in something, you really do want Essence 4 or 5 charms (generally 4). The best tricks in Larceny and Socialize (at least the persona tree), Melee, Brawl are all Ess 4. Craft and Lore you want to be Ess 5 if at all possible. Stealth only has charms up to Ess 4, but the auto-upgrades at Ess 5 are pretty good.

Contrast this with, for example, Athletics, which has a few Ess 4/5 charms and they're useful (Lanaya mentioned Nine Aeons Thew - it's really good!), but the overwhelming majority of its goodies are 1-3. Ride doesn't have anything above Essence 3, but it has a lot of charms nonetheless, and you can get a huge variety even at Essence 1.

In this way there seems to be a division between top-heavy "main abilities" which you want as your supernal and bottom-heavy "support abilities" which you don't. I used to be pretty salty (no pun intended) about Sail Supernal being Eclipse-only, until going over it and realizing there are 13 Sail charms that are Ess 1, 15 that are E2, and 11 that are E3, and nothing that auto-upgrades at E4 or E5; there's very little reason to make it your Supernal no matter what your concept is.

War seems to be of the "support ability" variety, but it's okay because even at E1 War is really good.

[Serafina]

Basically, it's meant to encourage you to take a "Main" ability as your Supernal, rather than a "support" ability, rather than outright forcing you to do so.
Which is good design space, actually.

Now War is actually a pretty great example of a support ability. You pretty much only use it when you have an army around. In the vast majority of campaigns, that'll not be all the time. Even if you do have an army around, you'll still want to have other abilities (combat abilities or performance etc.).

Ride is another ability which has no Essence 4 or 5 charms. So does Thrown actually.
Awareness has no Essence 5 charms.
Dodge only has one Essence 5 charm, and no Essence 4 charm. So does Resistance.
Linguistics has no Essence 5 charms, and only two Essence 4 charms.

Of course, you can build characters who focus on one of those - a legendary Rider, or of course someone who exclusively uses Thrown weapons.
And it's good that the game doesn't prevent you from doing so. But it is equally good that it makes you consider it, by making you think "wait a minute, do I really want this as my Supernal? It has no high-essence charms."


Of course, by taking ANY ability as a Supernal - even if it has no or few Essence 4 or 5 charms - you'll essentially be better in that area than anyone else after character creation, and for quite a while to come.
Sure, once your group is at Essence 3, you might regret that choice. Now your circlemates could become just a good as you in your own area of specialty. And you can't be as good as them in theirs.
But then again, getting Essence 3 charms in their area of specialty will make your pretty damn good at it. So while it's an issue, it's not an overwhelming one. And considering how long it takes a normal game to get to Essence 3, the early boost is well worth it.

[Morty]

I rather like the Supernal Abilities as a mechanic, I must say. It's basically a mechanics for "give me all the cool stuff now", which is appropriate for Exalted. Also, it makes a Solar's advancement more horizontal. You can be supremely skilled in your chosen field at the start, and as you advance in Essence, you supplement it with more powerful effects from other abilities, so it's more about gaining versatility.

[TheCountAlucard]

I'd also point out that just because there are no published Essence 5 Solar War Charms doesn't mean there can't be. Especially if your table has good homebrewers.

[tonberrian]

Hmm. How, in your opinion, would a Twilight Bureaucracy Supernal differ from a Eclipse Bureaucracy Supernal?

[HalfTangible]

Hmm. How, in your opinion, would a Twilight Bureaucracy Supernal differ from a Eclipse Bureaucracy Supernal?

Personal ability and intellect versus smart delegation and management.

A Twilight cuts red tape by looking at the legal system in full and cutting what needs to be cut. He finds laws that are outdated or redundant and rewrites them to smooth the legal process. He takes 1500 volumes of law and brings it down to 50, and makes them easy for the common man to interpret. He makes use of his other knowledge to keep the laws beneficial to those they affect, or at least as unobtrusive as possible.

An Eclipse puts the right people in the right places. She weeds out the corrupt and the lazy, makes sure that every department that needs to speak to each other is doing so and ensures that every legal avenue runs as efficiently as possible. She knows who to call for every job and how to keep them motivated. She makes sure that oaths by law are followed to the letter, and keeps many favors curried and ready to be called upon.

In either case you have someone who has taken a broken and corrupt legal system and made it run buttery smooth. However, they don't do so in the same way, since (i assume) the Eclipse and Twilight threw some of their dots into other abilities.

...

Now I kinda want to make these two a married couple and have them both run the same empire. They'd be unstoppable.

[tonberrian]

Personal ability and intellect versus smart delegation and management.

A Twilight cuts red tape by looking at the legal system in full and cutting what needs to be cut. He finds laws that are outdated or redundant and rewrites them to smooth the legal process. He takes 1500 volumes of law and brings it down to 50, and makes them easy for the common man to interpret. He makes use of his other knowledge to keep the laws beneficial to those they affect, or at least as unobtrusive as possible.

An Eclipse puts the right people in the right places. She weeds out the corrupt and the lazy, makes sure that every department that needs to speak to each other is doing so and ensures that every legal avenue runs as efficiently as possible. She knows who to call for every job and how to keep them motivated. She makes sure that oaths by law are followed to the letter, and keeps many favors curried and ready to be called upon.

In either case you have someone who has taken a broken and corrupt legal system and made it run buttery smooth. However, they don't do so in the same way, since (i assume) the Eclipse and Twilight threw some of their dots into other abilities.

...

Now I kinda want to make these two a married couple and have them both run the same empire. They'd be unstoppable.

This started off as musing on the nature of Recette as a Solar. On the one hand, she's not very bright but has great people skills. On the other, she was very skilled at crafting stuff before being thrust into the role as shopkeep, and identifies every bit of loot that she brings back, and knows how to combine them into more and better loot to sell.

[HalfTangible]

This started off as musing on the nature of Recette as a Solar. On the one hand, she's not very bright but has great people skills. On the other, she was very skilled at crafting stuff before being thrust into the role as shopkeep, and identifies every bit of loot that she brings back, and knows how to combine them into more and better loot to sell.

Between the two of them, Tear would be the Eclipse and Recette the Twilight. imo.

Though Recette is kind of a weird character in regards to the intellect stat to begin with

[Rater202]

So, presumably Infernals and Abyssal's with have a similar structure to their charm trees as solars do.

Does anyone have any predictions for what we might see in those trees?

(Other than bread and better charms that are functionally identical to actually identical to existing solar bread and butter charms becuase technically they are solars?)

I'm kind of hoping for an Infernal occult or survival(because familiar) that lets you create minor demons based on existing ones but with modifications baed on yourself to be your familiars.

I mean, on the old White Wolf forums there was a dev comment about the possibility of spirit of the Living World* or a similar charm being an occult charm for Infernals(unfortunately I forgot the name of the thread so i cn't search the arcives) so it's not that far out there.

I've also got a mental image of an Abyssal who exalted after almost dying in a freak accident just as he was becoming enlightened as a sourcer going on adventures aided by a familiar that is the ghost of his sage grandfather who set him on the path that led him to seek such enlightenment, so rules for and support charms for ghost familiars would be a thing I'd hope to see with Abyssals

*It was in the context of people complaining about Devil Tigers not being a thing anymore. The Devs pointed out that the custom Exalt stuff was being ported into Exigents and that with the Exigents rules you could easily make an Exalted that started Exalt but then became something else becuase their exaltation was mutating them in body and soul, and then mentioned that while becoming a Yozi or Primordial wasn't a thing, infernal do emulate the Yozi to a degree, and gave the example that having a soul world was kind of like having a world body, but at the same time clearly distinct, and then mentioned that a charm keying off of your soul world that created gods subservient to you based off of your personality traits or the features of your soul world would be in theme for infernals, be similar to a Primordial soul hierarchy but would be clearly distinct from it.

[tonberrian]

To be fair Solar Occult lets you create a demon. Not necessarily that minor, either.

[TheCountAlucard]

No, it lets you create a spirit. There's a pretty big distinction to be made there.

[tonberrian]

No, it lets you create a spirit. There's a pretty big distinction to be made there.

As demons are a subcategory of spirits, I'm not seing how that's a useful distinction, other than to say it can do other stuff than creating a demon.

[TheCountAlucard]

Demons are a pretty darn specific subcategory of spirits, what with their being the imprisoned souls of the enemies of the gods. Since "spirit" no longer strictly breaks down into "demon, god, elemental, ghost, and nothing else," my interpretation of the Charm is that the spirit created by it is none of these things by default.

To me it seems odd that one's cobbled-together spirit gets to be categorized as a living piece of the Demon City or otherwise part of a titan's soul heirarchy.

But, y'know, I can't stop you interpreting it that way if you want to, so do whatever at your own table I guess.

[Recaiden]

Spirit breaks down into: God, Demon, Elemental, Ghost, Other, and other isn't a real category. It seems obvious that the spirit you create can be any of these, especially as you can recreate captured spirits. I don't know why you would think you can't create a specific type. Exalted have power over demons and can already create Elementals through summoning, after all.

[Sith_Happens]

(Lanaya mentioned Nine Aeons Thew - it's really good!)

"Really good" doesn't even begin to describe it, especially in combination with its prerequisites; I ran the numbers a little while back on just how strong a Solar could potentially be and the results were truly insane. Suppose a starting (Essence 1) character with Strength 5, Athletics 5, Mighty Thew 3, and a specialty in Feats of Strength uses Increasing Strength Exercise to increase her Strength to 6, then supplements a feat of strength with Thunder's Might, Power Suffusing Form Technique, Nine Aeons Thew, and a full Excellency. For 19m, 1 wp (which is admittedly a lot) she'll be rolling 32 dice with 7-again and re-rolling all non-successes once, for an average of 41 successes. Your guess is as good as mine what that can pull off because the chart only goes up to 20 successes and that many already gets you "Tear open the earth to create a crevasse[sic]."

At Essence 5 she can spend 33m, 1 wp to roll 44 dice with an average of 56 successes, which I'm going to guess is roughly around "Punch a mountain in half."

Basically, it's meant to encourage you to take a "Main" ability as your Supernal, rather than a "support" ability, rather than outright forcing you to do so.
Which is good design space, actually.

Is there a quote on this, because to me the varying Essence caps seem indicative of there not having been any unifying rhyme or reason to how different Charm trees were designed.

[tonberrian]

Mrr. I need to finish statting up all these artifacts I'm headspacing. Typhon, a storm-based five-dot blue jade reaper daiklave; Plaguebearer, a soulsteel reaper daiklaive that is to disease as Spring Razor is to poison, and Lover's Embrace, crazy clingy ghost-lover soulsteel armor.

[Sith_Happens]

Lover's Embrace, crazy clingy ghost-lover soulsteel armor.

*cue nonstop innuendos about being "inside" him/her/it*