PDA

View Full Version : A quick question about Exalted



Fortuna
2010-04-26, 02:07 AM
Is it just me, or is the Eclipse caste completely and utterly useless?

And can't Night caste be duplicated by Twilight?

Zaakar
2010-04-26, 03:41 AM
Eclipse can learn non-solar charms. Get a hold of the right teacher and that means huge potential. And well, given the favourite ability system most castes can be duplicated to some extent. Being able to hide your anima banner is quite neat, though.

I do admit that the Eclipes abilites arn't so impressive, though :smallbiggrin:

Delta
2010-04-26, 03:56 AM
Eclipse are fairly underpowered, yes, but I've found their anima ability to sanctify oaths to be surprisingly awesome many times. Sure, crunchwise, it's a long shot from the great abilities like the Twilight anima, but in many situations, it can make your life a whole lot easier.

Terraoblivion
2010-04-26, 04:07 AM
The problem with the Eclipse caste isn't that they are mechanically weak, it is that they are poorly designed. Their theme is pretty vague, it is often hard to tell why someone is an Eclipse and not a socially inclined Night, a Zenith who cares about actual planning or a social-engineer Twilight. It is very hard to come up with a concept that cannot just as reasonably be done with one of those castes. Their abilities also don't have much coherence, seeming to just be whichever were left over from the other castes flimsily justified as fitting the overall theme of the caste.

The other poorly designed Solar caste is Dawn. While their theme is very clear and solid, their abilities are just horribly chosen. They do fit the theme, but they are also horribly redundant. In general i think that Solars, and their darker counterparts, have the worst designed castes overall. They balance poorly with each other and are not always equally sound thematically.

The Demented One
2010-04-26, 04:52 AM
Eclipse is one of the better castes, actually. Oath-binding is probably the best anima power in the game, and their abilities give them a decent spread–Socialize packs gems like Mastery of Small Manners and Wise-Eyed Courtier Technique; Linguistics is important for anyone intending to do large-scale social stuff; Ride and Sail...once you realize how big Creation is, they seem a lot more useful. Bureaucracy's odd man out, but that's just 'cause there's not much system for it.

Sanguine
2010-04-26, 10:14 AM
I've got to agree with what's already been said the oath-binding anima power is quite awesome and Socialize has some really fun Charms and linguistics as well as being a decent ability on it's own has a few gems in it's charm tree as I recall. As for night I don't really see how Twilight could copy it more then any other Caste. Athletics, Awareness, Stealth, and Dodge are all awesome abilities with awesome Charms Larceny admittedly is kinda meh in my opinion but still four out of five is quite awesome. And would require quite a bit of Investment on the part of a Twilight to emulate.

JeenLeen
2010-04-26, 10:23 AM
If I play Exalted, Eclipse has the most appeal to me because of the oath-binding power and the innate treaty/amnesty they have while dealing with certain other creatures. I do realize this is dependent on how the Storyteller uses or allows you to use such abilities, but they at least seem powerful.

That, combined with the ability to learn other Charms, makes them appear a very versatile (and thus useful and thereby strong) 'class.' Even if not very distinctive by theme or caste abilities, the way stats are determined allows you to not be greatly hindered thereby.

Indon
2010-04-26, 10:34 AM
The ability to use any charm is a fairly powerful one even with only the main book - just take a look at the sample spirit charms, and that's the sort of thing Eclipse can pick up.

Now consider that an Eclipse can pick up mote-efficient Dragon-Blood excellencies, learn Sidereal Prayer Strip charms (do they have the ability to activate an auspicious roll with Sidereal excellencies?), pick up some sweet Lunar knacks, and do even more esoteric stuff.

On the more important point of sheer awesome, Eclipse has a good bit of it. The perk of being able to invoke (literal) diplomatic immunity in exotic places like Malfeas is fairly awesome, aside from the other previously noted abilities.


Ride and Sail...once you realize you can ride around on a genetically engineered dinosaur or a magic rocket ship, they seem a lot more useful.

Fixed for Exalted.

As for castes replacing each other, yeah, aside from only a few specific powers a solar of any caste can perform the job of a solar of any other caste. Zeniths auto-qualify as priests for the purpose of prayers, but all another exalt has to do is simply be some kind of priest. Eclipses can invoke diplomatic immunity, but another exalt can simply fast-talk something into not attacking. Dawns can beat people up, and, well, Solars can beat people up.

Edit: Extra credit question. If you're surfing on a living airship, do you use Ride or Sail to control it?

Yuki Akuma
2010-04-26, 10:43 AM
Eclipses cannot learn knacks any more than they can learn colleges. Knacks are very much not charms.

Airships are sail. Smaller air vessels are ride.

Terraoblivion
2010-04-26, 10:45 AM
No, an Eclipse can not pick up Lunar knacks. Knacks are refinements of Lunar shapeshifting not charms. Nobody who isn't a Lunar can ever gain a knack.

And it is not about copying abilities, Indon. It is about covering theme. I have a hard time thinking of any single theme for an Eclipse that wouldn't make at least as much thematic sense for at least one of the other castes.

TheCountAlucard
2010-04-26, 10:51 AM
Edit: Extra credit question. If you're surfing on a living airship, do you use Ride or Sail to control it?Actually, you use the Lore ability on airships, hence why our group has no dots in Sail. :smallcool:

Indon
2010-04-26, 11:26 AM
Eclipses cannot learn knacks any more than they can learn colleges. Knacks are very much not charms.

Oh?

Still, that leaves them with access to Dragon-Blooded abilities, Sidereal abilities (and enhanced access to certain supernatural Martial Arts if I recall correctly, such as the ability to learn Exalt-specific styles as an Exalt of that type), spirit charms which cover the gamut of gods, demons, and elementals, and... I don't recall if they can pick up glamours or paths.


And it is not about copying abilities, Indon. It is about covering theme.
Solars can cover each others' theme readily, too. Dawns can be sneaky bringing-the-justice types, Twilights can be holy men, Nights can be glorious warriors of the Unconquered Sun, and so on.

Caste is just a suggestion, especially in the second age (during the first age, it was a stronger suggestion).


I have a hard time thinking of any single theme for an Eclipse that wouldn't make at least as much thematic sense for at least one of the other castes.

Diplomat?

Really, think of the role of the Eclipse caste as social-specific Dawn/Night exalts. Eclipses are the exalts meant to deal between beings of Exalt-level power, as opposed to Dawns, which are beings meant to deal with them.


Actually, you use the Lore ability on airships, hence why our group has no dots in Sail. :smallcool:

Fair enough! Living dirigible, then.

Or better yet, your magically engineered dinosaur was combined somehow with an airship. Ride or Lore?

Tavar
2010-04-26, 11:43 AM
In that case, you'd use the lower of the two, considering precedent.

Terraoblivion
2010-04-26, 11:51 AM
Diplomat is just as much a Night caste thing, though. They are all about subtlety of all kinds, including socially. Or if he deals fairly and openly with people a Zenith with some basic understanding of social niceties.

The problem i see with Eclipse is that their theme is so much more narrow than that of other castes making it hard to justify why it is there in the first place. Dawn's are about fighting. Zeniths are about leading. Twilights are about knowledge. Nights are about subtlety. What are Eclipses about that is not just a specific approach to these things? That is where i think the problem lie. They are not a distinct archtype to work from like the other castes. Castebook: Eclipse even went so far as to pretty much admit it and then tried to create an awkward explanation for how it was totally an archtype without really explaining what it was supposed to be then.

Lapak
2010-04-26, 12:08 PM
Diplomat is just as much a Night caste thing, though. They are all about subtlety of all kinds, including socially. Or if he deals fairly and openly with people a Zenith with some basic understanding of social niceties. I think you're unselling 'communicator' as an archetype. The difference between an Eclipse and a social Night caste is the difference between a diplomat and a spy: being a diplomat is as unsubtle as it comes - you have to be secretive in some ways, sure, but that's not the same thing. The difference between an Eclipse and a social Zenith is the difference between a diplomat and a world leader: the diplomat isn't supposed to make decisions but facilitate the implementation of them. The difference between an Eclipse and a social Twilight is the difference between a school's headmaster and its most talented lecturer: one can communicate their knowledge effectively; the other can create an environment where that learning takes place and keep it moving smoothly.

Hostage negotiator. Administrator. Diplomat. PR specialist. Propagandist. Lawyer. Salesman. All of these roles are ones suited to the Eclipse caste in particular: they're not roles that lay down the law, like a Zenith should, or enforce the law, like a Dawn, or support order in a subtle or non-public way, like a Night, or reveal anything new about it, like a Twilight: they all quite publicly and openly grease the gears of the system they're a part of and keep it rolling without force or inherent authority or secrecy or superior intelligence.

And the oath-binding fits right in with that: once they accomplish their goal of getting people to agree on something so that everyone can move ahead, they have a way to enforce it without hovering around constantly.

EDIT: The fact that their role is more or less exclusively a supportive one may be what causes the disconnect. A headmaster is useless outside the context of the school, but doesn't give knowledge himself. A diplomat is useless without a government, but he doesn't make law. And so on. But it is a clear archetype.

tonberrian
2010-04-26, 12:08 PM
In the Five Man Band that is the perfect circle, the Eclipse is the Chick.

Terraoblivion
2010-04-26, 12:27 PM
Diplomacy is quite subtle. You have to avoid tipping your hand on just how far you are willing to go. You have to nudge the one negotiating with into revealing where they are willing to concede. You have to intimate willingness to do concessions without it being blatant enough that the other party will be encouraged to push further. Diplomacy is probably one of the most subtle of human behaviors since the consequences of sending the wrong signals can be so dire.

Also the archtype is not really that clear. All your examples are defined not by what they do, but by what someone else does. And while there is somewhat of a common trend it doesn't alter the fact that it is conceptually extremely diverse without a simple thing to hook them up to. Not only that, they are not the focus of protagonists, they are at most what a protagonist does as a backdrop before he goes out and does whatever the story is about. They are the kinds of jobs that side characters have to pave the way for the protagonist to go about doing whatever they're doing. And when a story does focus on the vicissitudes of management or tense hostage negotiations, they suddenly start slipping into acting in ways not in accordance to what you presented as the Eclipse archtype. Which makes sense, that archtype is not something fitting a viewpoint character as it ultimately lacks personal agency. It is not defined by its own actions, even actions that are basically supportive, but by the actions of others.

Also we are not talking about mundane people doing mundane jobs, we are talking about epic heroes. Is there any way to do any of these things in a manner fitting for an epic hero with epic goals that still allows them to be in a position of enabler? And not just a position of enabler a position of enabler not focused on what they can achieve from their position. What you seem to say that the Eclipse is meant to be is the ideal diplomat or the Prussian civil servant, essentially a being giving up its ego to become a cog in a greater machine. It is at most a philosophical archtype and one pretty damn hard and limiting to play.

Lapak
2010-04-26, 01:29 PM
Diplomacy is subtle. Being a diplomat is not, if you see the distinction I'm making.

As for the heroic level, well, yeah, that's the challenge of working with Eclipse-caste Exalted: what do they bring to the team that another Caste wouldn't by nature, especially since they are prone to support roles?

First and most importantly, they're not going to be the protagonist in most story-arcs. It requires a player that understands and expects that to get the most from them. As a trade-off for ever being the Man in the Spotlight during the Epic Happening, they should be the second guy in line for everything. Each player is going to have a turn in the lead role except them, but while everyone else fades into the background for that point the Eclipse should be right at the headliner's shoulder.

Say you're doing an arc to overthrow a Deathlord or something and raise a Solar-run government in its place. The Circle needs to unearth a First Age artifact and lead an army to his door to knock him down. They need to find the artifact first, and its location is hidden in a city currently hosting another major enemy (huge gathering of Dragonblooded hunters or something.) They can only get to the place by sailing through reefs into the unknown harbor on a pitch-black night without a local pilot. The Eclipse, with his skill-set, can do this. Once they're in town, the Night can do his subtle thing and get a hold of the info, while everyone else supports the endeavor and maybe fights their way out when everything inevitably goes wrong.

Then you need to get the artifact and riddle out how to use it. Well, only the Twilight might have the ranks in Occult to get through the arcane maze that hides it and work the artifact once you do, but the maze itself is in a Fey enclave and guarded by a bunch of Wyld things that have taken the form of fanatic Defenders of the Artifact. If the Eclipse isn't there to get the Circle's foot in the door, you'll never make it to the maze in the first place. Everyone else can support the Twilight, fight maze obstacles, and so on.

Then you need to raise an army. Well, the Zenith no doubt can whip up a bunch of holy warriors if need be and inspire the locals to rise up when the moment comes, but that won't be enough against the final foe and his forces, even with the Dawn to lead the army. So who's going to stiffen up that army for him with elementals, major and minor gods, other Exalted who've been convinced and or oathbound, and so on? The Eclipse, that's who, running around making deals and twisting arms to gather the forces while the Night scouts the terrain and the Twilight warms up the artifact. The Dawn can make an army a force to be feared, and the Zenith can make them believe in a cause once they've arrived, but neither one would have enough raw material to work on without the Eclipse.

So what does the Eclipse bring the Circle? He sets the stage for everyone else's success. He gets them to where they need to be and provides them with the access or raw resources they need to do their thing, and does this for the whole Circle. Where the Night could sneak in alone, or the Dawn could bust a path, the Eclipse can bring the entire group openly.

Terraoblivion
2010-04-26, 02:09 PM
Being the protagonist is what being a Solar is about. If you were not the protagonist you would not be epic enough to get a Solar exaltation. That is the basic problem of the Eclipse. It is not epic. What it is meant to do is to abdicate the epicness that being a Solar is about and due to the way the castes tie into concept abdicate the ego and personal agenda that being a protagonist is about. The brilliant diplomat who can talk anybody into anything is a perfectly fitting concept for a Night caste. The social engineer reforming society is a splendid example of a social focused Twilight. The idealistic politician out to convince others of the need for reform is a somewhat more subtle Zenith than the stereotype. These are the kinds of things that the Eclipse caste is supposed to be, but they are already covered. There is no need for a specific caste for them.

As for your examples then in the first one, what the Eclipse does really doesn't tie into the concept of the caste. It just comes from the basic fact that Sail happened to be dumped on the Eclipse skill list because it had to go somewhere. The other two are more interesting.

In the first example we are dealing with an intermediary with spiritual entities. A Zenith could do it with sheer social might of course, but there is still conceptual space for someone skilled at negotiating with them. Such as a shaman of some kind, some person trained in dealing with occult beings. And indeed that is one of the archtypes covered by the Twilight caste. It is one of the things that is spent most time describing about said caste. There is no real reason to have another guy who also has that role as part of the caste archtype.

The final example is a bit less interesting than the one before. But why can't the Zenith do it himself? Zeniths are supposed to lead, inspire and unify, while fighting creatures of darkness. How is bringing rogue gods, and terrestrial gods are almost invariably rogue, in line and bringing exalts together to fight an enemy of all Creation. That is exactly what they are supposed to do. There is no real reason for another caste to do this, it is already provided in the core example. Zeniths are perfectly capable of longterm planning and can easily be subtle. There are several examples of it.

Talkkno
2010-04-26, 02:32 PM
Frankly, I think a Eclpises role makes a little more sense in a more metaphorical alah the Chosen of Journeys of sidereals sense on why they have Ride and Sail are on their caste list.

Lapak
2010-04-26, 02:52 PM
(I am enjoying this discussion, by the by.)

Protagonist at any moment, the Eclipse won't be. Protagonist of the entire arc? He might. If a game played out as I summarized, I can see describing the Eclipse as the central character. Or, to put a twist on it, he wasn't supporting everyone else's efforts; they were supplementing his. Without him, they would've been stymied before they begun. And the text description of them as the group's face supports this, too.

In the first example, Sail isn't arbitrarily assigned. It's assigned to the Caste which opens doors and facilitates movement from one place/society/environment to another. It's a key feature of the Caste, like a teleport-specialized D&D wizard or a Scion with the Psychopomp purview. Creation is a big, big place, and getting a Circle - or an entire army/fleet - across it is part of the facilitator aspect of the Caste, just as Zenith's trait of prophet-leaders includes both inspiring good and striking down darkness.

In the second example, actually, no; negotiating with the supernatural and building alliances with it is not described as a key Twilight trait to my knowledge. Understanding it, yes; binding it, certainly; controlling it, absolutely. Being seen as a trusted ally of it, not really. Yes, you can build a social Twilight that does exactly that, but you can also build a melee-tank army-training Twilight and say that their aspect of knowledge/instruction should and does include knowledge and instruction of fighting wars. You'd tread all over Dawn's role doing so, and that doesn't make it wrong, but it doesn't make it the 'intended' role of a Twilight Caste Solar either.

The third example I did phrase poorly. Let me restate: the Zenith raises the army. The Dawn trains and leads them. It's still not enough. On the borders of the Deathlord's territory, there are assorted forces that won't join your army but would like to see the Deathlord fall. A rival Solar and his forces - or a rival Infernal, why not - or a breakaway kingdom afraid of being absorbed, or all three. These people aren't going to be convinced by an archetypal Zenith - the Zenith's job is to get people in line with the Unconquered Sun behind him, and the gang listed aren't interested and have their own agenda. They're not, and won't ever be, part of the PC army. But they have to contribute for the group to succeed. If it's the Zenith's job to array the forces of proper Creation, it's the Eclipse's job to deal with those who aren't or can't be part of it. A typical Zenith is supposed to destroy creatures of darkness, not enlist them in his schemes.

Again, since we're asking about the archetypes here: I'm not saying no Zenith could ever be the social diplomat in that sense. I'm saying that it's not part of the archetype. You can build a melee-brute Twilight, a sorcerer-Night, a silver-tongued Dawn, or a fanatical demon-slaying Eclipse. But as to what their designed role is, that's it: organize and negotiate without leading, facilitate the roles of others where you can't fill them, and get everyone and everything where it needs to be when it needs to be there. Which, incidentally, makes them far and away the best-suited protagonists in a lone-wolf Chronicle in my opinion: whatever they can't do themselves, they can convince someone else to do.

Jerthanis
2010-04-26, 02:53 PM
Eclipses seem, to me, to possess the most useful Anima power, and one of the most distinctive roles, and Linguistics and Socialize have some of the most potent charms in the game in them. Admittedly it feels like Ride and Sail were thrown in because they weren't fitting any of the other Castes very well, and Bureaucracy has no system, so does literally whatever the ST feels like it should do.

Someone once used the metaphor that while Zeniths were the President, Eclipses are the entire presidential cabinet and congress. The President says, "Hey, we should have aqueducts to bring fresh water into our city and to help sewage management", and so the Eclipse puts aside funds, rustles up a workforce and puts people to work making an aqueduct. The President says, "I've successfully convinced this other nation to grant us military aid against our enemies." And the Eclipse goes and figures out how the military moves, and what burdens it will put on your economy, drums up the citizenship's support for the war, and figures out how to appease the other country when half the men come back dead. The Zenith is a charismatic figurehead, the Eclipse does all the work.

Also, while you may only use 2 or 3 of the Eclipse's key abilities in one character, I'd argue that a Dawn who uses more than 2 or 3 of his would be a rare, strange type of Dawn Caste. Twilights aren't all Craftsmen AND Detectives AND Doctors AND Scholars AND Sorcerers... Doing absolutely everything within your Caste Abilities means you can't do much outside your Caste Abilities, and you've got five whole favored abilities to take advantage of.

TheCountAlucard
2010-04-26, 03:20 PM
I'd argue that a Dawn who uses more than 2 or 3 of his would be a rare, strange type of Dawn Caste.So far, for me, it's just Martial Arts, with one dot in War. Considering putting some in Thrown, though.


Twilights aren't all Craftsmen AND Detectives AND Doctors AND Scholars AND Sorcerers...Nope, but our group's Twilight is four of those. And he's a martial artist.


Doing absolutely everything within your Caste Abilities means you can't do much outside your Caste Abilities, and you've got five whole favored abilities to take advantage of.I dunno, four out of the five are good for Night, and all five are good for Zenith.

Terraoblivion
2010-04-26, 03:49 PM
The arc as outlined doesn't seem to lend itself to the Eclipse as the protagonist. Basically there is no pressing need for him to be there. Eclipses are only slightly more likely than others to have Sail. Indeed the only time i have seen a Solar with any dots in Sail it was a Night. And the other examples really could most likely be done by someone else in the group or alternative solutions could have been found. The last one is the most interesting after you elaborated so i will get back to it.

I am still not very impressed by the justification of the socialite being the one with Ride and Sail. I sorta get what they are going at, but i just don't think it is a very good justification. It basically feels like they are reaching to try and make sure it is justified and not quite achieving it. The example is also a bit contrived since there are few places a Night caste who focuses on stealth cannot sneak into on their own, while the rest of the circle would just be in the way once inside anyway. Also unless the guards are looking specifically for them, a solar with even a moderate focus in social skills should be able to get them to be let in if it is not a longterm infiltration. In any case i don't think there is much point in keeping discussing this particular bit since it appears that people make up their minds on it quickly and then never change their opinion.

As for the second scenario, then i can just say that Castebook: Twilight disagrees with you. There are more spirit negotiator characters in that book than there are crafters of any kind, which seems to suggest that it is an intended type for Twilights, rather than an unusual one.

Now the third example is the most interesting of these i think, after you elaborated that is. The independent kingdom should not be a problem. It is not like they can just throw a Zenith out and after a few hours of sermoning they will be drained of willpower and accept, mortals just aren't good at resisting prolonged social combat against an exalt. However, the Infernal and the other Solar will likely need negotiation to be convinced. This also definitely doesn't fall under the narrowest band of Zenith archtype. However, if every caste is only defined by the narrowest band of archtype there is a huge amount of concepts that would be homeless. Zeniths are supposed to lead, inspire, resist temptation, purge darkness etc. None of this says that they should also be straightforward brickheads without social grace. While that is a choice, it is no more archtypical than one who can speak with deep wisdom so people understand how helping them is in their own best interest. At least i don't recall Jesus, Moses or Buddha being incapable of reasoning with beings they couldn't just bowl over by sheer force of charisma.

And that metaphor explains the problem of the Eclipse caste quite well, Jerthanis. It shows that they are not doing their own thing when actually acting in accordance with the attempted theme. They are doing Zenith's thing. There is a reason that people focus on the president and not the cabinet and that is because he is the one making the agenda and setting up the goals. The cabinet and administration is there to serve that purpose. They are quite literally an accessory to him who, if they achieve the pinnacle of their role, becomes a part of a larger machinery. That not only focuses on stories that are generally considered quite dull, it also focuses on topics that are ultimately irrelevant for a game about epic heroes. You don't see Achilles, Zhuge Liang and Robin Hood getting together to do spreadsheets, balance budgets and manage human resources. You see them doing epic deeds of heroism. Even legendary examples of social reform and the like which involves management looks at the toplevel stuff.

Furthermore the impersonal nature of doing this job well, clashes quite heavily with the focus on passion and larger than life goals that the game has. Being a good manager for someone else means setting aside your own passions and goals, which just doesn't fit in. The very essence of being a Solar clashes on a fundamental level with the best ideas for what the purpose of the Eclipse caste is. Just look at the characters in Castebook: Eclipse, the book that spends its entire introductory chapter trying to justify the existence of the caste. Some of them are less epic than your average heroic mortal and don't even get near any of the Dragonblooded in the aspect books. They are just excessively mundane through and through. Like, most of them are uninteresting enough that they would make a fairly dull character in WoD which focuses on a much more personal level of conflict, mundane.

And how wide the other castes are means that few concepts that actually are epic belong anymore to this caste than any other. That is why i think it is an ill-conceived misfit of a class. Zeniths can be great, passionate reformers without straying one bit from the core aspect of their caste. Nights can be subtle, talented diplomats without straying from their. And Twilights can easily apply the same engineering mindset to human society that they can to mechanics. These are not even stretching the way that melee-brute Twilights and Silver-tongue trickster Dawns are.

Lapak
2010-04-26, 04:34 PM
For whether or not he's the protagonist, I'd call being a critical component of every step of their solution pretty central. Yes, there could be alternate approaches in some cases, but A) in the proposed scenario, they went with the ones described and B) in some cases, there may not be viable alternatives for negotiation or transportation.

As for the Ride/Sail business: we may just disagree on that, but since I see them as Facilitator rather than (just) Socialite, we may be stuck there.

I admit that I haven't read the Twilight Castebook. Given what you tell me, I'm not convinced it was the best-constructed, because it walks all over how the main book describes the two Castes. If we were going to sum each Caste in three words as they're presented in the main book, Eclipse would be Facilitating, Officiating and Negotiating while the Twilight would be Knowing, Building and Teaching. I think (and you may feel free to disagree) that it's a case of bad sourcebook writing, and a case of them pushing into the Eclipse role rather than the Eclipse not having one. The same is true of Night Caste negotiators: that (again, in my opinion) is too overt to fit in with the description of their Caste. They're not, by definition, intended to be public figures.

I certainly agree that the greatest conflict and crossover applies with the Zenith Caste. They can be powerful social organizers. But there is a distinction, I believe, because the one thing that Zeniths are not supposed to be is compromising. They're supposed to be, typically, the bedrock on which the other Castes can build. A Zenith offered a compromise like - heck, like the comic-form example of negotiation in the 2nd edition main book, where the Eclipse gets a sharklike godling to assist in exchange for eating friends and foes alike who fall into his grasp? Is it really on-type for a Zenith to make that kind of bargain? Anyone who is a social powerhouse who genuinely compromises with the other side rather than just trying to bring them into accordance with his own views fits Eclipse much better than Zenith. Like your stated examples of Jesus, Moses and Buddha: they weren't saying 'do X, and I'll flex on Y.' They were saying 'do X, because it's the Right Thing To Do.'

As for heroic examples, to take the backgrounds you gave: don't take Achilles, take Odysseus. Persuasive without being principled, cunning without being particularly subtle, a master of twisting words and situations to suit, and capable of recruiting followers (of him, not of any cause) over and over again, despite getting them all killed repeatedly. The only one who even held the Greek army together when Achilles was raging or Agamemnon was threatening to pack up and go home. Capable of taking a oath-bound situation like Penelope's bargain and not only turning it to his advantage but fulfilling it. He fits Eclipse better than the other Castes, in a definitive way. Oh, and he's a sailor too. :smallwink: Or take Orpheus, who traveled places no one else could go and convinced men and Gods alike to do what he wanted.

Take Liu Bei, who wasn't the greatest general (defeated more than once) or the best scholar, but who kept on persuading his friends and enemies alike to give him advantages and positions, return hostages, and switch sides. Too morally flexible (at least in early life) for a Zenith, too overt for a Night, extremely successful. Made Emperor, in fact. Actually, Chinese history and legend is pretty heavily weighted with stories of really, really adept bureaucrats, so that's a fine source in general.

Robin Hood - okay, that one's tough, but there aren't too many major characters in that gang to begin with. Robin (Nightish), John (Dawn/Zenith), Tuck (Zenith? Maybe?) - maybe Alan-a-Dale or Will Scarlett, since they're both usually presented as flashy social types and don't fit the other archetypes well either.

There are plenty of characters out there who are persuasive, public actors with no particular moral convictions, just things they want to accomplish. There are even a fair number of organizers and bureaucrats. I think the Eclipse have enough room to have a role. ESPECIALLY in hierarchy-mad Creation. You have convinced me that they take the leading role in cases where I didn't recognize it, though.

NOTE: Edited a couple of times, to clarify and to fix a couple of points.

Terraoblivion
2010-04-26, 05:43 PM
The castebook is supported by the examples of archtypical characters in the core book of both first and second edition. However, given that they are one-line descriptions they might take a more forceful magical approach to dealing with spirits. However, i am willing to concede that none of the spirit negotiating Twilights are in Scroll of Exalts, so they might have decided it was a bad call to put them in Castebook: Twilight. There are no Eclipses dealing with spirits in the book either. So it is inconclusive as far as evidence goes and ultimately cleaves to pre-existing belief.

And if we are assigning three words to each caste it would probably sound something like this to me. Dawns are Fighting, Leading and...not really sure on the third one actually. Zenith's are Ruling, Enduring and Passionate. Twilight is indeed Learning, Building and Teaching. Night would be Subtlety, Stealth and Adaptability, based on what i can see written about them. Eclipse would be Administrating, Negotiating and Supporting. Now some of these are a bit uncertain, especially Night is hard to put in words. But either Night is very wide and focused on indirect means or Night is "that guy who sneaks" which is simply too limiting. However, as far as i see it the set of terms for the Eclipse is narrower than anything but the sneaky-guy-only version of the Night caste.

In regards to Zeniths as i see it they are indeed uncompromising, but only on the topics they consider vital. A Zenith who thinks that honoring the Unconquered Sun is the highest duty of all mortals, will not accept any shirking of that duty. However, he might have no problem with human sacrifice provided it does not go to someone he considers an enemy of the Unconquered Sun. So i could actually see a Zenith making exactly such a deal provided it did not touch upon his specific ideas about how the Unconquered Sun wants the world to be. If he even cares that much about his role as a priest. Both Jesus and Moses did indeed compromise when it came to non-central parts of their beliefs, though in-depth detail about these iconic figures for the Zenith caste cannot really be discussed here.

The real problem in distinguishing the two castes as far as i can tell is that you need an epic motivation. You need something epic you feel very strongly about to exalt as a Solar. With that comes the kind of strong convictions that you won't compromise that is emblematic of a Zenith and when you also use similar methods towards fairly similar goals, there is not much room left for a different caste and the one with the theme that is a subset of the other is the one who gets squeezed out.

In regards to the mythological examples i will admit that i mostly chose them at random going for a group of fairly diverse and famous individuals. I did consider Odysseus but went against it because the guy is just hard to define, especially given that he has two different characterizations. In the Iliad he is described as wiser than anybody else, but also prone to fits of mania with rolling eyes and frothing mouth much of the time, but his wisdom overrides his lack of charm. Befitting the odd ways mortals and gods interact in said epic it is hard to tell how much of his wisdom is his and how much comes from Athena. In any case he sounds more like a prophet speaking in tongues and acting under inspiration from the gods than a clever, civilized administrator to me. In the Odyssey on the other hand he is the best at everything, whether thinking of cunning plans, telling the wisdom of the gods or fighting. He is pretty much impossible to tie to a caste in it since he is so damn perfect, you could argue that he could be any caste because no matter what you focus on he's the best. And being a sailor doesn't say much, all Greek heroes are. :P

I don't know Romance of the Three Kingdoms with the same level of detail that i know the Iliad and the Odyssey so what i can say about Liu Bei specifically is less specific. However, moral flexibility isn't really a problem if it doesn't touch core beliefs. Again i don't know enough details to tell for certain whether that is the case for him or not. I do know a fair amount of Chinese mythology, though, and the bureaucrats tend to be skilled only by means of the narrator telling us very firmly that they are skilled bureaucrats. The ones who become more than background characters in someone else's story and get to really affect things other than as the sidekick of someone else tends to be either generals, philosophers or scholars though. Not many who are predominantly bureaucrats and still get to matter. Even so China with its tradition of strong central governance is probably the best place to look for legendary diplomats and bureaucrats. For that matter the one historical figure i try to use to conceptualize the Eclipse caste was Chinese, that being Deng Xiaoping. Purged thrice, yet returning to the very pinnacles of power every time he managed to completely dismantle and rebuild the system of governance through reforms rather than through any kind of revolution.

Finally Robin Hood was just chosen at random because i needed a last guy who wasn't too similar to the other two, after i discarded Roland and King Arthur. Not much to say there and really, he is about the only character in his stories worth considered to be exemplary of Solars. Most of them can be firmly considered sidekicks rather than heroes in their own right.

I think that ultimately our disagreement might tie deeply into our perceptions of something as mundane as politics. When you fundamentally believe politics is fueled by passion and more so when we reach the epic level of politics that Exalted is about, it becomes hard to tell who is the passionate leadertype and who is the morally flexible negotiator. That eats a huge chunk of what the Eclipse caste is supposedly about, since only fairly drab politically based ideas are left. And negotiation is what really anybody who cares about using social skills for power will do at times and depending on how you go about it makes it fit either Night or Zenith well. Subtly and shrouded in secrecy for Night or heralded in pomp and done with great theatricalness for Zenith. It doesn't really seem to have its own meta-concept to go with it, when it is just a practical tool to achieve goals through discussion.

Jerthanis
2010-04-27, 02:54 AM
I dunno, four out of the five are good for Night, and all five are good for Zenith.

I dunno about all five being good for Zenith... Survival kinda sticks out like a sore thumb as not really fitting well, and Integrity in social situations is the "Lalala, I can't hear you" defense. I don't find Awareness charms super-great, and the tree is extremely shallow anyway, so I kinda think that one's only useful for the Dots, which anyone can get if they try hard enough.

Still, if you REALLY like 4 out of 5 of the Night caste abilities, you can favor all of them, still have one left over for what combat ability you want to take if you're not a Dawn, and have five whole Caste abilities as well. I find it hard to believe anyone really balances themselves evenly between all ten of its favored/caste abilities to such an extent that choice of Caste matters in terms of Abilities except as a convenience.

Terraoblivion
2010-04-27, 05:40 AM
*suddenly losses all color as strange lighting leaves her black and white and shrouded in heavy shadows. A flash and she looks to the left. Another and she looks to the right. Then straight ahead, followed by up and to the right before color resumes and she grabs her head* I'm in despair! My inability to understand the Eclipse caste has left me in despair!

Ummm, yeah. And now with less melodrama. In any case talking to you as well as discussing it with one of my friends has convinced me that there is a space for the Eclipse caste. It has also shown me the vague area. But every time i try to grasp it, try to make sense of it and try to apply it to a concrete concept it slips away. I keep stumbling into shades of negotiation that falls under the heading of another caste instead, though of course with room for debate. I can see how there should be concepts that obviously fall into the vague conceptual space that i can see Eclipse having. But i cannot for the life of me think of any of them, nor can i think of any real way of describing it. I can only think of people who are sidekicks, background characters and agendaless servants which is obviously not what it is about. So what i want to ask if any of you could help me by showing some more concrete examples of what the Eclipse caste is about, rather than going strictly for the archetype itself, like the previous discussion did. It just is kind of impractical to not really get one of the five subdivisions of the major group in your favorite system.

And in case you are wondering what it was about at the beginning, it is the catchphrase of the main character of Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayonara_zetsubo_sensei). It seemed fitting here given how much this has bugged me.

Sophismata
2010-04-27, 06:40 AM
So what i want to ask if any of you could help me by showing some more concrete examples of what the Eclipse caste is about, rather than going strictly for the archetype itself, like the previous discussion did.

There is a trilogy of books by Jennifer Fallon called the Second Sons Trilogy. The books are The Lion of Senet, Eye of the Labyrinth and Lord of the Shadows. The book's protagonist is an excellent example of an Eclipse Caste.

Indon
2010-04-27, 07:02 AM
In the Five Man Band that is the perfect circle, the Eclipse is the Chick.

You'd think, but in Exalted, Heart is an awesome power (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeartIsAnAwesomePower).


Protagonist at any moment, the Eclipse won't be.

I think I disagree.

Of the castes, the Eclipse is the one most capable of turning powerful enemies into allies. They are masters at navigating the massive bureaucracies of Heaven and Realm to their advantage.

The Eclipse can be Phoenix Wright representing the party after a powerful deity frames them, and that's definitely a protagonist moment, or Xanatos from Gargoyles, businessman and Magnificent Bastard. Or whatever the main character of that one Miazaki anime where there was a giant jungle and it was full of bugs of doom, that's hella what Eclipses do, talking down things so powerful even an Exalt might have trouble beating them up.


*suddenly losses all color as strange lighting leaves her black and white and shrouded in heavy shadows. A flash and she looks to the left. Another and she looks to the right. Then straight ahead, followed by up and to the right before color resumes and she grabs her head* I'm in despair! My inability to understand the Eclipse caste has left me in despair!
Quick, get an Eclipse in here stat, before Terra tries to make themselves taller!

Revlid
2010-04-27, 07:44 AM
Examples (http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/25056.gif)
Of (http://www.geek-vs-life.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/phoenix3.jpg)
Well (http://blogs.menmedia.co.uk/old/worldcup/JackSparrow.jpg)
Known (http://imstars.aufeminin.com/stars/fan/tommy-lee-jones/tommy-lee-jones-20040428-1355.jpg)
Eclipse (http://ranshinkawaii.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/lelouch-lamperouge.jpg)
Exalted (http://asg.animatedheroes.com/albums/gargoyles/Xanatos_schemes.sized.jpg).
Any (http://screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/odysseus.jpg)
Questions (http://bossabomdia.tilos.hu/nausicaa.jpg)?

FatR
2010-04-27, 12:03 PM
Is it just me, or is the Eclipse caste completely and utterly useless?
Mostly yes, ever since Principle of Motion was nerfed. If copying Infernal Charms is allowed, there still might be some tricks a Solar can want to pick from there for a high-XP game.



And can't Night caste be duplicated by Twilight?
Twilight can duplicate almost everything that's actually worth duplicating. From the mechanical standpoint there is very little reason to ever play any other caste.

FatR
2010-04-27, 12:17 PM
Of the castes, the Eclipse is the one most capable of turning powerful enemies into allies. They are masters at navigating the massive bureaucracies of Heaven and Realm to their advantage.
They don't get any actual powers to help them in this particular task, though. Their ability spread isn't even optimal for social-fuing things, and, depending on the edition, social-fu might not even be any good to begin with. Eclipse's diplomatic immunity is described in vague terms like "legitimate business" and "just cause", so it might mean alot, or might be utterly useless.

Weimann
2010-04-27, 03:15 PM
Of (http://www.geek-vs-life.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/phoenix3.jpg)Really? I had them as Zeniths. It's their job to be forceful and bring forth the truth, not to come to an agreement everyone is happy with.

Drascin
2010-04-27, 04:26 PM
Really? I had them as Zeniths. It's their job to be forceful and bring forth the truth, not to come to an agreement everyone is happy with.

Depends on each one, actually.

Mia is certainly Eclipse. Godot... well, Godot's an idiot, the poor guy (someone forgot to add dots in Intelligence), but I'd peg him as Eclipse as well.

And Phoenix is a newbie Zenith that finds himself completely besieged on all sides by bureaucracy and decides to pray to his luck, lower his head, and charge forward :smalltongue:.

Terraoblivion
2010-04-28, 12:47 AM
Quick, get an Eclipse in here stat, before Terra tries to make themselves taller!

Don't worry, at 5'10 i am quite tall enough already. Especially when i am also in China like is the case at the moment, no desire to make myself taller. Besides it never works, creepy and cheerful girls get you down from there first.

In any case those examples do help me coming more to terms with what the Eclipse caste does. Still not quite as clear as the other castes to me, but it does help. I cannot see myself ever playing one, but that is just because i am horrible at playing subtle characters or at planning. Apart from Phoenix, who i do agree is more of a Zenith, i am simply too blunt to pull off anything like any of them.

Sophismata
2010-04-28, 01:20 AM
Don't worry, at 5'10 i am quite tall enough already. Especially when i am also in China like is the case at the moment, no desire to make myself taller. Besides it never works, creepy and cheerful girls get you down from there first.

In any case those examples do help me coming more to terms with what the Eclipse caste does. Still not quite as clear as the other castes to me, but it does help. I cannot see myself ever playing one, but that is just because i am horrible at playing subtle characters or at planning. Apart from Phoenix, who i do agree is more of a Zenith, i am simply too blunt to pull off anything like any of them.

In all seriousness, read Lion of Senet. Great example of an eclipse caste - someone who wins with wits, words, and political acumen.

Terraoblivion
2010-04-28, 02:37 AM
I get it that you really like this series of books. And don't get me wrong, i know plenty of examples of characters doing just that and enjoy a lot of them. That doesn't mean that i myself possess the wits, skill with words and political acumen to properly create characters in that vein. :smalltongue:

Sophismata
2010-04-28, 07:30 AM
I get it that you really like this series of books. And don't get me wrong, i know plenty of examples of characters doing just that and enjoy a lot of them. That doesn't mean that i myself possess the wits, skill with words and political acumen to properly create characters in that vein. :smalltongue:

Don't get me wrong, it's probably my favourite series of books, but the reason I keep mentioning it is because it's the only good example of an Eclipse caste I can think of.

It's hard to make the diplomat the hero - so I can see where your complaint about the Eclipse caste comes from. I'd agree, if I hadn't seen an example to the contrary.

Weimann
2010-04-28, 07:44 AM
As I see it, there's one big problem with the Eclipse caste, and that is that the servces of the Eclipse is so seldom actually needed. With all the overflowing power contained in the Solars, why'd they bother with negotiating? They curb-stomp the problem and look great doing it.

I realise there's a lot of situations when negotiation is actually a good thing. However, will the players realise this? The Exalted game is a lot about showing off your awesomeness, and so, a caste that negotiates and compromises to reach his goals may be harder to make valid than one who puches people in the snout to establish authority.

Indon
2010-04-28, 08:16 AM
As I see it, there's one big problem with the Eclipse caste, and that is that the servces of the Eclipse is so seldom actually needed. With all the overflowing power contained in the Solars, why'd they bother with negotiating? They curb-stomp the problem and look great doing it.

If I'm not running an Exalted game and the circle isn't facing adversaries much more powerful than they are, then I'm running an Exalted game for people who are still new to the system, and I'm thus still going very easy on them.

Creation is chock-full of things that can obliterate low-mid power Solars, and who actively want to do so. Diplomacy can help.

One interesting NPC I threw at my group once, was a Moonshadow caste who was pressured into binding himself by oaths to his Deathlord and is now considered trustworthy as a result. Whenever he interacted with the players, he constantly tried to lawyer his way into helping the party around his various oaths.

Sadly, that specific campaign didn't last long enough for the group to catch on. :(

FatR
2010-04-28, 08:22 AM
As I see it, there's one big problem with the Eclipse caste, and that is that the servces of the Eclipse is so seldom actually needed. With all the overflowing power contained in the Solars, why'd they bother with negotiating? They curb-stomp the problem and look great doing it.
Actually it is doubly worse. First, Ecplipses are inferior at negotiating. Even if we pretend that caste abilties actually matter in the game where you get five favored abilities, which is more than the number of ability Charm trees a character can realistically develop even with 10 XP per session (twice the official amount), Eclipses still don't get caste abilities that make people really good either at negotiating (Nights have Investigation goodness) or flat-out mindrape (Zeniths have Performance and Presence).

And second, when you finally encounter any of the the numerous penis extension NPCs of Exalted and realize that he can spank your whole Solar circle as a light workout, you'll find that diplomancy works even worse than direct attacks on him. Just two Solar-level Charms can near-completely shut down any attempts at social-fuing their owner. Beings without access to them need more, but it is not like millenia-old elders are short on XP.

Indon
2010-04-28, 08:30 AM
They don't get any actual powers to help them in this particular task, though. Their ability spread isn't even optimal for social-fuing things, and, depending on the edition, social-fu might not even be any good to begin with. Eclipse's diplomatic immunity is described in vague terms like "legitimate business" and "just cause", so it might mean alot, or might be utterly useless.

True - like the Twilight, the Eclipse's actual powers are more appropriate for doing things out-of-caste.

As far as those powers go, though, the Eclipse's abilities are very potent. Even without considering the diplomatic immunity, and that they don't get crazy easy access to awesome extra actions anymore, there are still very nice charms out there that Eclipses can get.

Huh, a thought. How would comboing two Excellencies with different dice caps work? Say you have 5 stat + 5 skill + 3 specialty, and you used Solar+DB Excellency. Could you spend 4 motes on the DB excellency for 8 (for the skill+spec), and then 5 more motes on the Solar excellency to fill out the stat? Or would the caps be independent and you'd be able to get a total of 10 additional from the Solar? Or would you only be able to spend 2 on the Solar, the difference between the DB and Solar cap?

Is there even any ruling on that?

Terraoblivion
2010-04-28, 08:33 AM
I don't think there has been an official ruling, Indon. However, the way i would rule it, the Solar would have to pay full price for his Solar excellency whether he used a dragonblooded one or not. Seems like the most reasonable solution to me.

And i will definitely agree that the Eclipse caste has one of the best set of anime powers, probably to make up for the somewhat messy order of their caste abilities, even with something as awesome as Linguistics and Socialize are. Nothing creates longterm effects like those two charm trees, often for ridiculously low expenditures.

All of this talk about negotiating reminds me that my straitlaced Zenith is going to have to do that soon. With the general staff of Lookshy no less, should prove interesting. She isn't much of a person for subtlety or for cutting deals and intimating gain, rather than simply stating what the right thing to do is.

Lapak
2010-04-28, 08:35 AM
Actually it is doubly worse. First, Ecplipses are inferior at negotiating.This I *do* consider a problem with the Caste, and not a small one. The situation you describe is a large part of why people don't see the point of Eclipse - it's not because the role is not appropriate or heroic, because it can be. It's because the mechanics they're given don't support the role sufficiently. They're explicitly described as the diplomatic face of the group, and then not given the tools they need to do the job. This, and the social-combat mechanics and defenses in general, are not the only flaws in Exalted's mechanics, but they are the most significant and least easily houseruled around in my opinion.

Terraoblivion
2010-04-28, 08:45 AM
Ability assignments for Solars/Abyssals/Infernals honestly need a lot of work. They have the pile of redundancy that is Dawn/Dusk/can't remember and then the haphazard collection of abilities that is Eclipse/Moonshadow/Fiend. And houseruling the abilities of the two castes would likely start touching on other ones too, effectively rewriting the entire set of abilities for Solars.

Admittedly that is probably also part of my problem with Eclipse, when the Zenith has the abilities to do the job readily available it seems like he is supposed to do the job. That they are the ones who get a bonus to make spirits grant their desires sorta also points in that direction, even if it is probably wrong. Finally the system ultimately makes no distinction between convincing someone of something by appeals to higher moral values and doing it by making a deal. Intimacies doesn't go a very long way towards that, undermining the ability to see the purpose of Eclipses for it when Zeniths are doing it already. Mechanically you arrive at exactly the same conclusion, just described in two different ways depending on whether you are a idealist convincing others by passion and rhetorical skills or you sit down and make a deal.

Sophismata
2010-04-28, 09:27 AM
I honestly think people are underestimating the power to actually BIND agreements reached. They are also confusing negotiation with diplomacy.

Indon
2010-04-28, 09:40 AM
I honestly think people are underestimating the power to actually BIND agreements reached. They are also confusing negotiation with diplomacy.

I find the sanctification ability to be the most dramatic of the anima powers, because the consequences are left up to the Storyteller to decide. This leaves tons of room for sheer awesomeness - the big bad can suddenly fail at the end, cursing the Eclipse's power, or on the other end the ST might completely fail to pull off doing it dramatically.

Lapak
2010-04-28, 10:29 AM
I honestly think people are underestimating the power to actually BIND agreements reached. They are also confusing negotiation with diplomacy.It's far and away the most flavorful of the caste powers, and can be the most powerful. The problem is that one power, no matter how flavorful or useful, is not enough to define a character type. And in the end, if you abstract diplomatic OR negotiation ability to roleplaying rather than mechanics, it's not a Caste-related ability but a player-related one, which does defeat the purpose of having them as an option. (Certainly this is true in a system that tries to include social mechanics, as Exalted does.)

Eclipse are actually my favorite of the Castes flavor-wise, and I strongly believe that they do have a role - but I also believe that other Castes were given areas of expertise that should have belonged to Eclipse and that they weren't given enough tools to perform this part of their role properly. Like I said earlier in the thread, Eclipse are supposed to be more than simply oath-binders; they're supposed to be facilitators in many other ways, and for some of that they are supported mechanically. But their mission statement of being the diplomats of the Solars? They were let down by the rules in that area.

Weimann
2010-04-28, 02:39 PM
Huh, a thought. How would comboing two Excellencies with different dice caps work? Say you have 5 stat + 5 skill + 3 specialty, and you used Solar+DB Excellency. Could you spend 4 motes on the DB excellency for 8 (for the skill+spec), and then 5 more motes on the Solar excellency to fill out the stat? Or would the caps be independent and you'd be able to get a total of 10 additional from the Solar? Or would you only be able to spend 2 on the Solar, the difference between the DB and Solar cap?

Is there even any ruling on that?Going entirely by RAW:


Charms can increase a Lawgiver’s dice pools by only an amount equal to (the relevant Attribute + Ability). No
combination of Charms can increase a Solar Exalt’s dice pools by more than this amount.
I take this to mean that the fact that a Dragon-Blooded can't use her charms to add more than (Ability + Speciality) to a roll has no bearing on the Eclipse who knows a Dragon-Blooded Excellency. The limit to dice adders lie in the Exalt type, not in the dice adders themselves.

This would mean that it would be allowable for an Eclipse to learn a Dragon-Blooded Excellency, and then pay 1m per 2 dice up to a maximum of (Attribute + Ability) dice.

However, I doubt an ST would allow this.

Tengu_temp
2010-04-28, 02:58 PM
Really? I had them as Zeniths. It's their job to be forceful and bring forth the truth, not to come to an agreement everyone is happy with.

Yeah, the only Eclipse ability lawyers in PW-verse use is bureaucracy. And most of them use it offscreen.

Primal Fury
2010-04-28, 03:03 PM
And can't Night caste be duplicated by Twilight?

Honestly, one caste can duplicate any other Caste. You are not required to take a terribly large amount of charms from your caste abilities. You could be a Zenith with Melee favored and call yourself a Dawn. Or a Twilight with Socialize favored and call yourself an Eclipse. People will only call you a liar once they see your caste mark.

Weimann
2010-04-28, 03:22 PM
Indeed, the amount of favoured abilities a Solar get make it easy to pick all of another caste's abilities and effectively be that caste instead, except for your anima power. It's something I personally like.