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Zorzark
2010-12-16, 04:39 PM
I have little idea what I'm doing. I'm trying to get my notes together to make a character, but I have no idea if what I'm doing actually does anything worthwhile.

Ahem. Anyway, I'm trying to make a social-y sorcerer-y Twilight caste. I've dumped some charms into surviving combat anyway because I know my group and ST and they like punching crap. I mentioned that I'm waffling between being a doctor or a sorcerer to my ST, and he seemed to favor doctor. Given how lethal combat in Exalted can be though, I'm not sure if a medic will be much use if everyone's already dead.

Anyway, let me show you guys what I have so far. Character creation is standard except that we have 35 bonus points, and starting essence is capped at 4. The Twilight anima power has also been changed so that it affects pre-soak damage, but now they can attune to any kind of metal.

Statblock go

Name: Unobtainable Jade Peach
Brief Character Summary: Chayan gone Exalted and dealing with the whole "emotions" and "exile" things a little poorly.
Caste: Twilight
Motivation: To rid Creation of the Fair Folk (tentative)
Attributes:
STR 1
DEX 5
STAM 2 (Bonus points spent here)

CHA 3
MANIP 1
APP 5

PER 5
INT 3
WITS 3

Skills: (Lots of BP spent here)
Melee (favored) 5
Athletics 2
Awareness 3
Dodge (favored) 5
Integrity 2
Performance (favored) 2
Presence (favored) 5
Resistance 2
Linguistics (favored) 2
Socialize 2
Craft (caste) 0
Investigation (caste) 3
Lore (caste) 3
Medicine (caste) 4
Occult (caste) 4

Advantages
Compassion 3
Conviction 2
Temperance 3
Valor 2

Willpower 6
Essence 4 (BP spent here)

Backgrounds:
Resources 3
Artifact (Buff Jacket) 2
Artifact (Serpent Sting Staff) 2 (I hide it inside a giant ribbon/boa and beat people with it aw yeah)

Chaaaaarms: (This is a mess, I don't know what I'm doing)
1stExcellency:Melee
2ndExcellency:Medicine
3rdExcellency:Presence
Sagacious Reading of Intent
Irresistible Salesman Spirit
Integrity-Protecting Prana
Graceful Crane Stance
Reflex Sidestep Technique
Shadow Over Water
Seven Shadow Evasion


All books are available, including Merits/Flaws, which I haven't picked yet, but I've only had time to read the core book and Compass: East, so I don't really know what's available to me. The campaign is set to begin somewhere in the Savage Lands. I hope this is enough information.

Xefas
2010-12-17, 12:26 AM
Given how lethal combat in Exalted can be though, I'm not sure if a medic will be much use if everyone's already dead.

This is especially true for Solars, as I don't think they have any medicine charms that instantly cure, say, health damage. They can cure your cancer with a flick of the wrist, punch the behemoth-venom out of your veins like it was nothing, and grow back your missing torso, but the best they can do health-level-wise is speed up your natural recovery. In Core, at least. I'm a bit more fuzzy on non-Core Solar Medicine. This leaves them somewhat lacking as combat medics. Not to mention, if your Storyteller is being particularly brutal, then combat medics are basically pointless, because your state of being is going to be "dead" or "not dead". Find out for certain just how lethal he plans to be.


Name: Unobtainable Jade Peach
Is this meant to have a sexual overtone, or am I over-thinking this? :smallconfused:


Motivation: To rid Creation of the Fair Folk (tentative)
While your motivation is certainly epic-scale enough, it's a bit too broad and open-ended. Not even the entirety of all the Exalts working together in the First Age, with pretty much no other threats besides the Fair Folk to worry about, could rid Creation of the Fair Folk. Consider working out a specific Fair Folk villain, who is threatening the world with his bad juju in some way or another, with the GM and then having that be your motivation. Like, maybe the Mouth of Peace is actually a Fair Folk in disguise, and you're the only one who knows, so it's up to you to stop him. Something; so long as it's more specific.


STAM 2 (Bonus points spent here)
Why? It's like, what, 4xp to get from Stam 1->2? There are vastly better deals for your bonus points.


Skills: (Lots of BP spent here)
Melee (favored) 5
Athletics 2
Awareness 3
Dodge (favored) 5
Integrity 2
Performance (favored) 2
Presence (favored) 5
Resistance 2
Linguistics (favored) 2
Socialize 2
Craft (caste) 0
Investigation (caste) 3
Lore (caste) 3
Medicine (caste) 4
Occult (caste) 4

I dunno if you're using the newly errata'd character creation rules, so that might make a difference, but you generally want to get your most important stuff up to 5 at character creation, because of the way XP costs scale. Using 1bp to get your, say, Occult from 4->5 is worth 7xp. That's over twice the normal conversion rate. It's good.

Also, if you were planning to be "Social-y" at all, high Integrity is a must. It's your first line of defense between you and every random mortal salesman trying to sell you snake oil out of the back of his van. Socialize is also damn good. If you're not going to commit all the way to maxing Performance, commit to Socialize instead. (Hint: Solar Socialize Charms are badass. Read them. If you don't get that impression, read them again. Keep reading them until you understand.)

I don't know a lot about how your character is supposed to be, but unless you're attached to Melee, I'd probably go with Archery. As a Sorcerer, it's probably not hard to get some kind of flight, and just fly around picking people off with your bow while your friends duke it out with their fists/fistklaives. If I recall, it's not hard to use bows in hand-to-hand or semi hand-to-hand range, either. Dunno for certain off the top of my head, though.


Advantages
Compassion 3
Conviction 2
Temperance 3
Valor 2
Unless your Storyteller is houseruling it, as a Sorcerer, you should probably go with higher Conviction. Spells tend to be Willpower intensive, and Conviction controls how fast you regain Willpower.

I advise against it, but if you want to go fully optimized, and you're playing without the chargen errata or some kind of houserule, I think the best virtue array for Solars woud be the "Perverted Sociopath" 1/4/1/3 (that's the name my meatspace tabletop group assigned to that array :smalltongue:). Fortunately, the errata does a lot to correct how the game encourages that sort of thing.


Willpower 6
Willpower is probably the strongest stat in the game. Doubly so for sorcerers and social folk, which you want to be both of.


1stExcellency:Melee
2ndExcellency:Medicine
3rdExcellency:Presence
Sagacious Reading of Intent
Irresistible Salesman Spirit
Integrity-Protecting Prana
Graceful Crane Stance
Reflex Sidestep Technique
Shadow Over Water
Seven Shadow Evasion
These are actually pretty good, standard stuff. Though, for a sorcerer, you have a mysterious lack of Sorcery. If I was in your shoes, I'd probably switch our Graceful Crane, 2nd Medicine Excellency, and 3rd Presence Excellency for Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, Demon of the First Circle, and 2nd Presence Excellency. Use Demon of the First Circle to grab some kind of flying demon and just have him fly you around (possibly while shooting people if you go with Archery), and Graceful Crane Stance loses some of its usefulness.


All books are available, including Merits/Flaws, which I haven't picked yet...
This is important. Check with the other players. Are they picking bull**** flaws that don't actually penalize them very much just to power up their characters? If so, do the same. If they aren't doing that, then you need to not do that either. Or else you'll look like a total douche.

The Rose Dragon
2010-12-17, 12:28 AM
Silly Xefas! If the Mouth of Peace is a raksha in disguise, you can't stop him!

Because you can stop her, as the Mouth of Peace is a woman!

Xefas
2010-12-17, 12:29 AM
Silly Xefas! If the Mouth of Peace is a raksha in disguise, you can't stop him!

Because you can stop her, as the Mouth of Peace is a woman!

I thought you would have learned from the Kimbery thing that I'm not good with genders. :smallannoyed::smalltongue:

The Rose Dragon
2010-12-17, 12:30 AM
Well, just in case you have missed it: Sallera's character? Is female.

Xefas
2010-12-17, 12:37 AM
Well, just in case you have missed it: Sallera's character? Is female.

I actually did catch onto this after a while. However, I still can't help but picture her as a halfling decked out with spears.

Tengu_temp
2010-12-17, 12:50 AM
If you want to go into medicine, Wound Mending Needles from Wonders of the Lost Age are tremendously useful. They let you heal people ridiculously quickly.

The Rose Dragon
2010-12-17, 12:52 AM
If you want to go into medicine, Wound Mending Needles from Wonders of the Lost Age are tremendously useful. They let you heal people ridiculously quickly.

Or you can get the resplendent satchel of healing and get a bunch of other useful stuff on top of the needles. Just note that it only works on Creation-born, so gods, demons, raksha and Autochthonians cannot be healed by the artifact.

Zorzark
2010-12-17, 02:15 AM
Yeah that name is totally meant to have sexual overtones and it makes me giggle. Thanks for the help; I'm working on adding your suggestions to my character and I've sent an email to the ST asking about the chargen rules. I'm very glad I asked, no one in my group is really free/willing/able to explain what does what and how to be effective. Merits and Flaws are allowed, although I don't know what everyone's taking other than that Past Lives is popular with this group. I was planning on taking a 4pt life debt to another PC, that's about it.

Kaisvoresce
2010-12-18, 02:07 AM
This may seem incredibly random, but I came across this while explaining what a chayan was to someone and noticed a million and one similarities and came to the conclusion were playing in the same game, if Nicks not responded yet its 20 base bonus points, 10 more for giving him a back story, and a max of 10 more from flaws. So 40 bonus points to work with, the only restriction I can think of are irrelevant since you already have your race. (I tried for a Solar exalted Sharkmen listed as an option at the back of the Celestial Direction Wyld Book) and the usual restriction with asking before taking an artifact rated above 3.

Creepy Ninja Response has been delivered!

Zorzark
2010-12-18, 05:22 AM
We are totally in the same game. Cue up some twilight zone music.