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Zorzark
2010-04-01, 12:46 PM
Odds are my group's going to be starting an Exalted game, so I'm trying to learn the system ahead of time. Thus far it's been like beating my head against a wall repeatedly. I've got part of a character, but with no idea what stats I need to do what I want.

Here's what I have so far. I'm going for a socially proficient medic/maybe crafter(?). The system seems to reward specialization, but I usually fall into jack-of-all-trades traps.

Attributes
Strength 1/5
Dexterity 5/5
Stamina 1/5

Charisma 3/5
Manipulation 1/5
Appearance 5/5

Perception3/5
Intelligence 3/5
Wits 3/5

I have two dots left to spend on either Social or Mental stats, but I really don't know which would benefit me more. I haven't done a lot of book diving, but is there any way too, say, add Charisma to everything a la DnD? I doubt it, but there's a lot to read and I haven't gotten through it all yet. Anyway:

Abilities
Favored
Melee 4/5
Performance 3/5
Awareness 3/5
Dodge 4/5
Socialize 3/5
Craft 3/5
Investigation 3/5
Medicine 3/5
Lore 0/5
Occult 0/5

Unfavored
Integrity 1/5
Linguistics 2/5

Backgrounds
Resources 3/5
Artifact 4/5 (To get Silken Armor and a Serpent Sting Staff)
(So there's 1 background point left unspent. I'm not sure what to do with it)

Virtues
Compassion 3/5
Temperance 3/5
Conviction 1/5
Valor 2/5

Essence 2

Potential Charms (Totally lost here)
1st Melee Excellency
1st Medicine Excellency
1st Socialize Excellency
1st Performance Excellency
Mastery of Small Manners
Respect Commanding Attitude
Sagacious Reading of Intent
Shadow Over Water
Seven Shadow Evasion
One Weapon, Two Blows
Peony Blossom Attack
Graceful Crane Stance

Not counting bonus points spent on charms, since that's still very up in the air, there are 10 points remaining. Where should they go; what skills should be maxed; what should be changed? What charms do I actually need?

The Rose Dragon
2010-04-01, 12:56 PM
First of all, separate artifacts use separate backgrounds. So, you actually have 2 separate 2-dot Artifact backgrounds, instead of a single 4-dot artifact, so you have filled your background allocation.

Lore 0 means you are illiterate. Among other things. Especially as a Twilight, you might consider taking one dot in it (of course, an illiterate, uncultured Twilight who does things by the method of being an idiot savant is interesting, but you still have Intelligence 3).

As a Twilight, you are not expected to be the group's combat master, whether it is social or physical, so you might drop dots and Charms there into more Twilight-y pursuits. For a medic and a craftsman, you interestingly have no Charms there.

Conviction 1 is an interesting thing for an Exalt, since they are Exalted at moments of heroism and determination, which implies Valor and Conviction. It can work, but do remember that it is one of the more commonly used Virtues.

Since you have no dots in Athletics, you are unable to take Graceful Crane Stance, unless it's a house rule that everybody gets it to make the game more wire-fu.

Though I will congratulate you on your choice of Excellencies over other, flashier Charms, since most beginners will overlook how useful they are.

Sanguine
2010-04-01, 12:58 PM
Well if you want to be a medic the glaring lack of Medicine Charms might be something to change same thing if you decide to do crafting. Also you might want to pick some different Excellencies(all though I agree with TRD that Excellencies are important). The following is a pretty good break down of what Excellencies are best for which abilities that I found on the internet.
To determine which Excellency is the best to choose for each Ability, consider the situations that you'll typically be in when making rolls for that Ability.

First Excellency is best for those times when your threshold of success (that is, the number of extra successes you get) is important. Combat is a perfect example. If you get a massive number of extra successes on an attack, you get to do a massive amount of extra damage.

Second Excellency is best for when you're making a roll against a set difficulty and it doesn't matter how many successes you beat that difficulty by. Social combat is a good example here. It doesn't matter how many successes you beat your opponent's MDV by, the result is the same: they agree with you or they have to spend a Willpower to disagree. Second Excellency is also good for those times when you absolutely can't afford to botch. Rolls to resist poison are a good example, Athletics rolls to avoid falling to your death are another.

Third Excellency is best for those times when you don't want to spend Essence unless you have to. Stealth rolls for instance, if you spend too much Essence, your anima will flare up and make Stealth impossible anyway. Third Excellency is good for rolls that you'll be making all the time and that you'll usually succeed without help from Charms, but you want a safety net just in case you botch. Awareness or Lore rolls could be examples of this. (Keep in mind you can often accomplish a similar level of subtlety using Infinite Ability Mastery and 2nd Excellency in combination.)

Here's an Ability by Ability breakdown:

Archery, Martial Arts, Melee, Thrown: 1st Excellency - You want the possibility to get huge numbers of successes on your attacks, so you're willing to risk a little inconsistency on defense.

War: 2nd Excellency (+ Infinite War Mastery!!) - The paradigm case for War rolls is a Charisma + War check at a difficulty of your unit's (Magnitude - Drill). Threshold doesn't matter, you just want to beat the difficulty. Also, 2nd Excellency is awesome to combine with Infinite War Mastery because you can use reflexive Charms at any time in Mass Combat and the scene lasts for the entire battle no matter how long it is. Commit some motes at the start of battle and you can effectively beat those Charisma + War checks automatically!

Integrity: 2nd or 3rd Excellency - It depends on how high your Integrity score is and your opinion on defense strategy. Would you rather spend more motes to make sure your opponent's argument doesn't penetrate your Dodge MDV, or would you rather be mote efficient and/or see how many successes your opponent rolls first?

Performance, Presence: 2nd or 3rd Excellency - 3rd if you don't want to glow because you're worried about attention from the Realm, 2nd otherwise.

Resistance: 2nd Excellency - Resistance rolls are always against a set difficutly and failures or botches are usually pretty disastrous. If you plan on spending a lot of time walking through bonfires or something, invest in Infinite Resistance Mastery and/or some natural soak Charms.

Survival: 1st or 2nd Excellency - Threshold matters for predicting the weather and tracking. When finding food or shelter, on the other hand, you just have to beat a set difficulty and you don't want to botch. It's a toss up.

Craft: Combo 1st and 2nd Excellency - High threshold improves your final product, but botching could spoil the whole project. Don't worry about spending that Willpower; Craft rolls are usually made weeks apart at least. That's more than enough time to recover the Willpower before the next roll.

Investigation: 2nd Excellency - Remember how awesome Ten Magistrate Eyes was in 1e. 2nd Excellency is a bit more expensive but gets the same sort of results.

Lore: 2nd and 3rd Excellency - You need two Excellencies to unlock some of the higher level Lore Charms, so use 3rd for the routine academic knowledge checks and 2nd when it's all on the line (like when you're trying to figure out how to defuse the First Age Essence Nuke).

Medicine: 2nd Excellency - Botching can mean losing your patient, take 2nd Excellency and use it.

Occult: 2nd Excellency - It would be nice if you could use 1st Excellency to boost the attack roll on spells like Death of Obsidian Butterflies, but you can't. Take 2nd for those set difficulty thaumaturgy rolls and occult knowledge checks.

Athletics: 2nd Excellency - For the purposes of lifting and jumping, 2nd Excellency is just as good as 1st for boosting those static ratings. For climbing or falling, you can't afford to botch. For keeping your balance, just take Graceful Crane Stance.

Awareness: 2nd or 3rd Excellency - It depends on your ST's style. If he has you make Perception + Awareness rolls all the time, take 3rd. If he only asks for a Perception + Awareness roll when there's an ambush, take 2nd.

Dodge: 2nd or 3rd Excellency - Like with Integrity, it depends on your defense strategy. 2nd for maximum defense boost, 3rd for mote efficiency.

Larceny and Stealth: 3rd Excellency - Glowing is worse than botching in these cases, and you can't afford to commit a bunch of motes to Infinite Ability Mastery because you might need those motes to power other Charms.

Bureacracy: 2nd Excellency - Threshold doesn't matter when pricing goods, probably doesn't matter when filling out paperwork, and haggling/negotiating/dealing with ornerry bureaucrats is handled by Social Combat. If you need to price a whole market full of goods in a single scene, take Infinite Bureaucracy Mastery. (By the way, you should probably be using Frugal Merchant Method or Insightful Buyer Technique to price goods anyway. Bureaucracy Excellencies just aren't that useful.)

Linguistics: 1st Excellency - Codes are the only thing I can think of that you actually roll Linguistics for. Huge amounts of successes can make your codes nigh-impossible to break, and allow you to crack nigh-impossible codes.

Ride: 3rd Excellency - If you make the roll to control your mount without magic that frees you up to use a combat Charm this action. If you don't make the roll, you've got 3rd Ride Excellency to fall back on.

Sail: 1st Excellency - Threshold matters for predicting weather and sea chases. It probably doesn't for navigating reefs or storms though. I'd be willing to risk failure for the chance of overwhelming success. Botches could probably be fixed with some stunted Craft (Wood) rolls.

Socialize: 3rd Excellency - Subtlety matters more for Socialize than the other social abilities since you use it to read other people's intentions and veil your own. It's also important for mass social combat, but you won't actually be rolling it.

There you go. Keep in mind this is just one man's opinion. I don't claim to be the final word on any of this. I would make Mental attributes primary but that's mostly due to my habit of doing that with my Twilight Castes, also a breakdown of what your bonus points on would be helpful.

vegetalss4
2010-04-01, 01:00 PM
1. no there is no way to add charisma to everything

2. i think you may have paid to much for your artifacts, your backgrounds should read:
Resources 3
Artifact 2 (Serpent Sting Staff)
Artifact 2 (Silken Armor)

3. charms: note that you actually never roll socialize, at all,

other than that it looks OK

please do note that I'm not an expert on this, and you should probably get other advice too

EDIT: Ninjaed, and by people who know far better what they are talking about even.

Sanguine
2010-04-01, 01:06 PM
1. no there is no way to add charisma to everything

Technically there are only like three things that are impossible in Exalted I don't remember them off the top of my head but I do know adding Charisma to everything isn't one of them. Of course doing so would probably involve High-Essence Charms or a Homebrew artifact.

Kylarra
2010-04-01, 01:09 PM
Technically there are only like three things that are impossible in Exalted I don't remember them off the top of my head but I do know adding Charisma to everything isn't one of them. Of course doing so would probably involve High-Essence Charms or a Homebrew artifact.
Nothing is impossible with solar circle sorcery!

That said, I'd definitely take points in occult so you can get to said sorcery eventually. Regardless if you plan on maxing it hard or just dabbling, sorcery is a useful tool to have.

That 1 stamina and 0 resistance will probably come back to bite you at some point as well.

Sanguine
2010-04-01, 01:14 PM
Nothing is impossible with solar circle sorcery!

That said, I'd definitely take points in occult so you can get to said sorcery eventually. Regardless if you plan on maxing it hard or just dabbling, sorcery is a useful tool to have.

That 1 stamina and 0 resistance will probably come back to bite you at some point as well.

Actually yes a few things are, Like Resurrection and Time Travel. I think there's a couple others but I can't remember them at the moment.

The Rose Dragon
2010-04-01, 01:27 PM
Actually yes a few things are, Like Resurrection and Time Travel. I think there's a couple others but I can't remember them at the moment.

Destroying or removing an Exaltation.

Cashius
2010-04-01, 04:40 PM
Well, if you want to go crafting this guide is a good one http://wiki.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php?title=Exalted_206_Artifact_Crafting. My own twilight almost completely goes with it with the exception that i grabbed snake style for some offensive capabilities, dodge perfect (Seven Shadow Evasion I don't like getting hit!), strength increasing exercise and specialized in magitech for the most part.

As for what direction you should go I say go with what you like playing. Exalted doesn't limit you to what you can or can not do because of you caste. But, like you said exalted does encourage players to specialize into one or two things that you excel but this is supposed to be fixed by the other members of you circle that are supposed to make up for this with there own abilities and powers. Although you caste anima power does help in curtain situations. Like, like using the twilight's soak power so that you get essence back when enemies hit you. (Twilight's anima effect + Charm: Essence Gathering Temper)

P.S don't go Medic it really isn't worth is when Wound Mending Needles does the job with a few dots in medicine (which you can just make if your a crafter) or body mending meditation for yourself

Kylarra
2010-04-01, 05:12 PM
Although if he were going to use EGT, then he'd want a stamina greater than 1.

Cashius
2010-04-01, 05:25 PM
Ya, physical stats are Strength 2, Dexterity 5, stamina 2 with me so ya stamina 1 isn't going to cut it but I'm just saying, its an option open for him if he chooses to get the charm (although is a good way to get some motes back in combat after you are almost out of motes. Plus, he needs stamina 2 to forge orichalcum if he goes crafting.

Cashius
2010-04-01, 05:34 PM
That said, I'd definitely take points in occult so you can get to said sorcery eventually. Regardless if you plan on maxing it hard or just dabbling, sorcery is a useful tool to have.
Ya, occult is a must if you go sorcerer or crafter. O and if your going sorcery http://wiki.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php?title=Exalted_209_Spellcrafthttp://wiki.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php?title=Exalted_209_Spellcraft has a good list of spells, although, i would grab wood dragon's claw and invulnerable skin of bronze if your going the sorcery fighter way. �wo

Zorzark
2010-04-01, 06:46 PM
So I should just ignore being a medic? I'm not sure exactly what makes something powerful in this system, so should I just take any points I have in it out and reallocate them to getting an artifact, or trying to raise my essence to start with sorcery?

I looked at the Essence Gathering Temper bit, and while it looked good I was worried it might be too powerful. Should I not be worried about that?

I ended up putting all my bonus points into skills, so it turned into:

Melee 4
Athletics 1
Awareness 3
Dodge 4
Integrity 1
Performance 3
Resistance 1
Linguistics 3
Socialize 3
Craft 5
Investigation 3
Lore 3
Medicine 5
Occult 4

Bonus points were spent on anything above 3 as well as the whole of investigate through occult.

Thanks much for the explanation on which excellencies are good for which skills.

Cashius
2010-04-01, 08:36 PM
Don't worry about being to powerful. Exalted is all about trying to be as big as a bad ass you can(i.e stunts). You are an solar exalted, beings who can shape entire nations and destroy armies. You can learn how to be a master swordsman in an instant or be the most powerful sorcerers in creation. And if you are worried about being to power keep in mind yes you are powerful but there is alway something stronger, more organized and have been around much longer like the WYld hunt, farfolk, abyssals, infernals and well anything above essence 6.

Also, being powerful in the most part is having the biggest dice pools you can so you can get alot of success and how fast you do it. There is more to it but for the most part thats what your looking for which is why first and second excellency are great.

Now where you put your points and buy your charms depends on your character concept and where you want to take him (motivation). It sounds like you don't have a character concept in mind or motivation. Character concept and motivation are the most important to shape out your character and decide location of points. Exalted, although mechanics are important, is character driven and drives the story, so its best you get that down first.

Also, pump up you essence to at least 3. This unlocks more charms for you and gives you more motes.

Sanguine
2010-04-02, 12:12 PM
I would like to say that in my opinion Essence-Gathering Temper is not an overpowered Charm, in fact I'd say in the hands of anyone but a Twilight it's rather underwhelming. Here's why: Unless you have a really good Stamina you should be getting around the same amount as from stunting, but unlike stunting this is taking up your charm use rendering you unable to defend yourself with charms or enhance your attacks with charms in the same round as using it.(Unless you put it in a combo but then you are draining you willpower) Here is the other big reason, you have to get hit for it to work, meaning to regain essence you have to risk yourself also this leaves it completely unusable when the opponent does nasty stuff on a hit other then damage(like killing you instantly), this of Course isn't as big a deal for a Twilight as your anima power will protect you from damage of course there are still those rare enemies who do nastier stuff then damage to worry about. So in conclusion it is a decent charm to use if you really need Essence now! but for your standard Essence needs stunting should cover it. In the hands of a Twilight the Charm is a lot better but not overpowered. But this is just my opinion and should be taken with a grain of salt.