Exalted -- Excellencies Only!?!?

[wayfare]

I recently had an idea for exalted, in which the only charms players got access to were excellencies and excellency enhancing charms (and Ox-Body Equivalents)

I kinda like the idea, but it seems like sidereals would take it the hardest (as their excellencies suck, save for auspicious).

So, I turn to the playground -- how would this effect play?

[Xefas]

So, I turn to the playground -- how would this effect play?

Well, about as much as you'd expect. You're taking out everything but very well-performed but mundane actions. Just like any plan involving removing perfect defenses, you're, of course, making things a bit more life-threatening. The best defense available is the Third [Dodge/Attack Ability of Your Choice] Excellency, which doubles static values (such as DVs). You have no special defense against environmental effects, social attacks, or big stuff that counts as unblockable or undodgeable.

Surprising someone becomes a pretty insurmountable advantage. Travel is going to take a while with no sorcery or movement charms. Wyld taint is kinda serious with no shaping defenses. I guess thaumaturgy would get a lot of use? Lunars and Sidereals get a bit more interesting, as they'd still have their Knacks and Astrology to differentiate themselves.

Depending on whether this is just players, or all Exalted...

Artifacts and Manses are going to be nearly non-existent. No craft charms or bound demons, after all. A lot of the bits of Exalted's history are plain impossible (like beating the Primordials).

[Reynard]

It'd become very dull and very deadly. All Solar XP would go towards getting the requirements for Infinite (Combat Ability) Mastery and/or Dodge Essence Flow (For those who use Ranged.)

Once they have those, it's onwards to Supreme Perfection of (Ability), and then they're done.

Seriously, now people will spend only between 32-48 XP on charms per ability, even after Ess5. I have a couple of characters who's spent well over 100xp on a single ability's charms and haven't even reached Ess4 yet. And this is not including the ten free charms at char gen. They might even only spend 16 xp on charms for an ability.

[Yuki Akuma]

It would be incredibly boring an dull. Excellencies are some of the best charms and the most boring ones.

Instead, give people Excellencies for free and elt them spend XP on interesting stuff. :smalltongue:

[Friv]

I'm going to chime in the "meh" category. Excellencies are the least cool things in the game, frankly.

From a purely mechanical perspective, you have the following issues:

#1) Lack of distinction between Exalt types. Sidereals and Solars end up pretty similar, Lunars are just weaker Solars who don't need to spend as much experience on their Charms, and Dragon-Bloods are just specialist Solars who can beat Lunars one-on-one because their die caps are higher.

#2) The need to completely re-write the setting, since without removing awesome Solar power, the Usurpation wouldn't end the First Age (which itself wouldn't really exist if only Excellencies were available). By Essence 10, Sidereals can match Solars on die pools, so they could do just as well at keeping a civilization running.

#3) The need to rewrite all godly and demonic powers, since they tend to depend on the theory that the players have a chance of opposing them. Otherwise, the Yozi could never be overthrown. Doubly so since gods have Perfect excellencies, and Exalts don't, so any god with a perfect attack just wins.

*EDIT* Out of curiousity, what is your goal with this plan? Is there something in particular you're aiming to enable or avoid?

[TheCountAlucard]

Actually, Dragon-blooded would have a pretty massive advantage, in the sense that their Excellencies are the cheapest in the game (until you get to Supreme Perfection of Ability and such).

Also curious as to why.

[Reynard]

Actually, Dragon-blooded would have a pretty massive advantage, in the sense that their Excellencies are the cheapest in the game (until you get to Supreme Perfection of Ability and such).

Also curious as to why.

Also, not to mention that they won't care about combos. At all.

[Friv]

Actually, Dragon-blooded would have a pretty massive advantage, in the sense that their Excellencies are the cheapest in the game (until you get to Supreme Perfection of Ability and such).

I think Solars will still have the edge there. Starting at Essence 3, they'll be drastically reducing their Excellency costs over the course of a scene (down to 0 by Essence 4). Add that to their 2-5 die advantage, and you've got a solid lead on murdering Dragon-Bloods.

(At Essence 2, though, Dragon-Bloods will have a major mote advantage over their enemies. It weirdly reverses the usual dynamic, with Solars pressing their advantage before they flare out, while the Terrestrials are in it for the long haul.)

Sidereals are sort of hosed, though.

[TheCountAlucard]

One more advantage the DBs would have in such a scenario: thanks to their improved mileage in the Artifact background, they're even more dangerous in a world without perfects.

Who knows, maybe Ox-Bodies become slightly more worth it at this stage... but probably not. :smalltongue:

[wayfare]

Thanks for the responses, everyone!

I guess the big question is "why would you even consider doing this?" I guess my answer might not be too fulfilling -- I want to run a game where miraculous dice pools mean something.

Like, if you want to summon an earth elemental, you can perform a ritual dance and if you get enough successes, you will call forth an earth elemental.

Or, if you want to heal wounds, a really, really good Medicine roll will allow you to do so.

I think the huge dice pools are a pretty awesome gift in and of themselves, and can do a great job of simulating the sort of divine power that the exalted have.

Also, there are plenty of supplemental types of magic out there that characters can benefit from. Thaumaturgy, astrology and the like.

[TheCountAlucard]

I want to run a game where miraculous dice pools mean something.I appreciate this sort of sentiment, but at the same time, implementing something like that would pretty much require a massive overhaul of the system.

For just one example of why, consider that many of the more potent things in Exalted are unrolled. No amount of dice in the world will save you from the Realm Defense Grid's defensive traps. You'd have to retool everything like that, and figure out exactly how many successes you'd need to beat it.

[Yuki Akuma]

I don't like it. It means that any mortal with a good enough dice pool could pull off Exalted-level magic.

(Seriously, mortals can get stupidly high dice pools if they put enough effort into it. Even without spirit charms.)

It really changes the entire setting. If you want high dice pools to mean something, throw incredibly difficult situations at your PCs, don't change the entire setting and remove all the interesting powers.

[SurlySeraph]

But huge dice pools can mostly do that already. Not the shortened healing times and such that charms get, and dancing to summon an elemental takes either Thaumaturgy and good Occult rolls, or stunting and a really nice DM, but they're still quite powerful, make no mistake.

Also, yeah, this sounds like a recipe for dullness to me. It'd get rid of paranoia combat and indeed most optimization at all (due to the replaced complexity), at the cost of a tremendous amount of variety and making Celestial Exalts vastly squishier.

Solar builds would probably all be variations on "Use Infinite Mastery and roll lots of dice," perhaps adding in Solar Circle Sorcery if you allowed it. Oh, also Sorcery and Necromancy would probably become more viable in combat.
Lunar builds would get all their Excellencies quickly and then focus on shapeshifting into very large animals, or on Sorcery for Full Moons. The lack of DBT-enhancing charms would make having a spirit shape that's quite powerful in and of itself smart; expect lots of tyrant lizards.
Sids would be split. Some would use Propitious (Ability) Alignment, because the College discount makes it cheaper though less powerful than Infinite Mastery; plus it makes getting the Third Excellency scene-long cost 1m, 1wp for Sids, which is nice. The rest would take the Fateful Excellency, because without perfect defenses it could be quite powerful if you rolled enough dice, and would become cannons with no staying power.
Pretty much everyone would wear Superheavy Plate, there'd be no reason not to. Pretty much everyone would go with Melee over Martial Arts because the weapons tend to be better, and without MA charms or form weapons MA would become a lot less useful.

[The Rose Dragon]

Also, yeah, this sounds like a recipe for dullness to me. It'd get rid of paranoia combat and indeed most optimization at all (due to the replaced complexity), at the cost of a tremendous amount of variety and making Celestial Exalts vastly squishier.

To the contrary, you would now have a reason to be paranoid, since artifacts are still powerful, and you don't have any defense other than Dodge, Melee and Martial Arts Excellencies (and Dexterity Excellencies for Lunars and Alchemicals).

[wayfare]

I don't like it. It means that any mortal with a good enough dice pool could pull off Exalted-level magic.

(Seriously, mortals can get stupidly high dice pools if they put enough effort into it. Even without spirit charms.)

It really changes the entire setting. If you want high dice pools to mean something, throw incredibly difficult situations at your PCs, don't change the entire setting and remove all the interesting powers.

I honestly don't feel like there really is that much variation in "all the interesting powers." They basically boil down to:

1) Imma do X hard (where X = anything)
2) Imma do X hard with Magic
3) Imma avoid gettin' hit because I said so
4) Imma do some shaping
5) Imma gonna attack your intimacies

All the cool stuff seems to come from fluff in exalted. So, if you had a charm that said "you can perform acts of shaping while in a wasteland" you could basically mimic all Cecelyne powers with that charm and your excellencies. Heck, you could just say that an infernal of the right cast just gets that ability.

I know this is more generic, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. Still, you are right in that it is a huge system change and would be a pain to figure out all the consequences.

[The Rose Dragon]

I'm thinking you don't really want to play Exalted in Storyteller. That's OK, there are other systems out there. I bet you can modify at least two FATE-based systems to work for Exalted, for example.

[SurlySeraph]

I honestly don't feel like there really is that much variation in "all the interesting powers." They basically boil down to:

1) Imma do X hard (where X = anything)


I honestly don't feel like there really is that much variation

Imma do anything

I don't follow your reasoning in saying there isn't much variety.

With that said, I think Qwixalted (http://aakin.net/qwixalted/doku.php) is relevant to your interests. It basically replaces all Charms with keyworded effects - slightly more variety than just Excellencies, but a lot less than in actual Exalted.

[Xefas]

I started a PbP Exalted game yesterday using the In a Wicked Age system, which sounds like it might be able to do the things you want already without any kind of modifications. So far, it seems to be working out pretty swimmingly for the group. You might wanna check into it.

[Tengu_temp]

I don't like it. It means that any mortal with a good enough dice pool could pull off Exalted-level magic.

I, on the other hand, very much like the idea of mortals actually mattering. But removing all the interesting charms is definitely not the way to achieve this.

[Yuki Akuma]

Heroic mortals already matter by their very definition.

They just matter less.

[Tael]

I, on the other hand, very much like the idea of mortals actually mattering. But removing all the interesting charms is definitely not the way to achieve this.

If everyone is special, no one is. Doing this would completely change the setting, as the gap between Exalted and Mortal is now substantially smaller.

[Indon]

On the other hand, if you ran, "You can stunt Excellencies to produce the effects of other, non-excellency charms," and work out a quick and dirty effects-based system, you don't even need to get rid of non-Excellency charms, because few of them (mostly the passive ones) now remain relevant, and the gap between Exalt and Human increases, because it is now easier for Exalts to access non-excellency awesomeness.

Major canon changes to this implementation:

-Sidereals can now improvise new effects for their charms because they're no longer making new charms but instead new applications for existing, extremely broad ones. This makes them more powerful.
-First Age Solars/Lunars are now even more bored because they XP-maxed a long time ago. This provides rationale for there being more, probably lost, passive First-Age charms.
-Fresh Exalts are way more powerful.
-The Exalted mechanics are now even more broken and less predictable than they were before, which doesn't really affect the setting but is pretty impressive!

[potatocubed]

I appreciate this sort of sentiment, but at the same time, implementing something like that would pretty much require a massive overhaul of the system.

In my experience, running Exalted at all requires a massive overhaul of the system.


I'm thinking you don't really want to play Exalted in Storyteller. That's OK, there are other systems out there. I bet you can modify at least two FATE-based systems to work for Exalted, for example.

This was my thought also. Ditch the entire system and pick up a new one, but keep all the cool setting stuff.

[Tengu_temp]

If everyone is special, no one is. Doing this would completely change the setting, as the gap between Exalted and Mortal is now substantially smaller.

Show me the part where I said that all mortals have to be special. And yes, lessening the gap between heroic mortals and Exalted would change the setting a lot - for the better, because it'd be less DBZ-like where if you're not a Saiyan, you suck.

Look at Weapons of the Gods, a setting very similar in tone to Exalted. Top tier martial artists are capable of really outrageous stunts in it - but they got their power via dedication, training and talent. Not because some shining eye in the sky decided to bestow it upon them. Everyone has the potential to be awesome, and that's much more interesting.

[TheCountAlucard]

Top tier martial artists are capable of really outrageous stunts in it - but they got their power via dedication, training and talent.Martial artists in Creation do the exact same thing.


Not because some shining eye in the sky decided to bestow it upon them.Ohohoho, we're playing this game, are we?

First of all, "some shining eye in the sky" doesn't bestow the Exaltation on someone; the Exaltation does. And it only picks people who would do great things with it. If you've Exalted, it's certainly not because you were sitting on your butt watching Jerry Seinfeld, now was it?

Secondly, Exalted still work for their powers; Immaculate Terrestrials train for years and years to enlighten their Essence to the level of being able to reach the Blossom of the Perfected Lotus. In fact, mortals in Exalted can rise above their station in much the same manner and seize Terrestrial Martial Arts.


Everyone has the potential to be awesome, and that's much more interesting.Everyone has the potential to be awesome in Exalted as well; sure, there can only be 700 Celestial Exalts running around at a time, but anyone can rise above his station and become more, particularly with the help of said Exalts.

[Reynard]

Secondly, Exalted still work for their powers;

DBs don't have too. Their Exaltation is decided at birth, and if it's coming, it's coming. The reason that they train is combination of social pressure and tradition... that's really it.

[Yuki Akuma]

Technically the Terrestrial Exaltation is triggered by some sort of intense emotion or stress - if a DB sits on his ass for his entire life he may never Exalt despite having the blood for it.

(Also technically there's a god who decides and if he doesn't like a particular proto-DB, well... Not that he's that sort of guy. He probably leaves most Terrestrial Exaltations on automatic.)

Sidereals, meanwhile, never have to lift a finger - they will Exalt, no matter what they do.

[Tengu_temp]

Martial artists in Creation do the exact same thing.

Except that if you're a mortal, the best you can hope for are Terrestial MA, which are pretty sad in comparison to what even a starting Celestial Exalted can do.


Everyone has the potential to be awesome in Exalted as well; sure, there can only be 700 Celestial Exalts running around at a time, but anyone can rise above his station and become more, particularly with the help of said Exalts.

And what dictates whether one will Exalt or not? Abilities matter, but what's most important is luck. You could be the greatest mortal warrior in the world, but for some nebulous reason you won't Exalt while someone else will, and you will just be gravel under his feet because the difference between Exalted and mortals, even enlightened ones, is that big.

[Drascin]

Martial artists in Creation do the exact same thing.

The difference, and what I think Tengu is driving as, is that in Weapons of the Gods, this makes you into a mover and shaker. In Exalted, this turns you into a slightly more useful footnote in an Exalt's character sheet.


Ohohoho, we're playing this game, are we?

First of all, "some shining eye in the sky" doesn't bestow the Exaltation on someone; the Exaltation does. And it only picks people who would do great things with it. If you've Exalted, it's certainly not because you were sitting on your butt watching Jerry Seinfeld, now was it?

I dunno, Arianna exalted when reading poetry :smalltongue:.

But the thing, again, is - Exaltation is dumb luck. Dozens upon dozens of people worthy of Exaltation die each week - and that if Creation just has a similar percentage of heroic people to our boring planet Earth. If it has more heroic people, as you'd think such a setting should, then the problem aggravates.


Secondly, Exalted still work for their powers; Immaculate Terrestrials train for years and years to enlighten their Essence to the level of being able to reach the Blossom of the Perfected Lotus. In fact, mortals in Exalted can rise above their station in much the same manner and seize Terrestrial Martial Arts.

Not particularly - the archetypal Solar backstory is a guy who was dumb enough to charge at impossible odds and got lucky enough that an Exaltation was free at that particular second. Solar Exaltations pick dreamers. Sidereal Exaltations are fated, and Dragonblooded Exaltations you get from birth. About the only kind of Exaltation that requires you to actually get something done is Lunar (must face near-impossible odds and survive them), and even then, not always. Exaltations trigger out of nebulous "potential" (read: how much the ST likes you) as much as out of actual capabilities and work.

[IcarusWings]

On the idea: I dunno', it could work, on the caveat that you can do awesome stuff with stunts. It doesn't necessarily remove all the interesting stuff, if a Solar stunts throwing a bolt of blazing anima at an opponent, it's still just as interesting (arguably, more interesting) as a Solar who took the charm Blazing Solar Bolt and can now throw bolts of blazing anima at opponents.
If stunts are used to replicate awesome stuff and charms, I'd say it would make the players more inventive and original. I'd prefer being able to shoot a butterfly at a league's distance because you're just that good, than because you bought a charm for it.



Sidereals, meanwhile, never have to lift a finger - they will Exalt, no matter what they do.

Sidereals still need to do something heroic in their life to exalt. It's just that fate sees that they will do something heroic, and retroactively destines them to Exalt. If you are born without a destiny to do something heroic, you will not Exalt as a Sidereal, but if you are destined to do something heroic, then you may also be destined to become a Sidereal.

[Reynard]

Technically the Terrestrial Exaltation is triggered by some sort of intense emotion or stress - if a DB sits on his ass for his entire life he may never Exalt despite having the blood for it.

(Also technically there's a god who decides and if he doesn't like a particular proto-DB, well... Not that he's that sort of guy. He probably leaves most Terrestrial Exaltations on automatic.)

Sidereals, meanwhile, never have to lift a finger - they will Exalt, no matter what they do.

DB Exaltations can be triggered by intense emotional stress. It's rare that it happens, so it mostly is just decided at birth.

[Tengu_temp]

I'd say that being born counts as intense emotional stress.

[wayfare]

Thanks for all the responses so far, guys.

I've done a bit more work on this idea -- nothing I feel comfortable shopping around just yet, but I do have some ideas that I would like to bounce around.

Anima Stunting is an idea I have to allow for exalted style shenanigans, a way to duplicate charms and whatnot. It functions as follows:

1) You determine the kind of effect you want to generate, which must relate to your Favored and Caste Abilities.
(this will likely mimic the effect of an existing charm)

2) The ST determines the difficulty of that effect
(If it mimics an existing charm, the difficulty will be the minimum essence rating of the charm. If this does not mimic a charm, the ST pulls a number out of the air.)

3) You form a dice pool with a maximum rating of (Skill + Essence). Each die in this pool costs 1 mote of essence. All Anima Stunts require 1 Willpower

4) Roll your dice. On a success, you manifest the effect.

Anima Stunts cannot be enhanced by excellencies, but can be enhanced by stunts and virtue channeling.

Anima Stunts do not count as charm use.

I know this sort of verges on OWoD mage in a sense, and maybe its a bad thing. I certainly have not tested this idea out yet, so any input would be valuable.

[Indon]

3) You form a dice pool with a maximum rating of (Skill + Essence). Each die in this pool costs 1 mote of essence. All Anima Stunts require 1 Willpower
Why not just a normal Attribute+Skill(+Specialty) pool? That way, you cover both attribute and ability-based Exalted with the rule.

I assume the WP cost is to lower the overall power level of Exalts by forcing them to keep their biggest abilities in reserve.


Anima Stunts cannot be enhanced by excellencies, but can be enhanced by stunts and virtue channeling.
Why not? If someone wants to spend extra motes to make sure they pull off a stunt (like a perfect defense against something really big and mean), why not let them?

[wayfare]

Why not just a normal Attribute+Skill(+Specialty) pool? That way, you cover both attribute and ability-based Exalted with the rule.

I assume the WP cost is to lower the overall power level of Exalts by forcing them to keep their biggest abilities in reserve.


Why not? If someone wants to spend extra motes to make sure they pull off a stunt (like a perfect defense against something really big and mean), why not let them?

I thought the normal (Attribute + Skill) thing might unfairly benefit Lunars/Alchemicals, as attributes cover so much ground as opposed to the narrow focus of skills.

Still, what you suggest might be the best solution.

The willpower cost is to limit how often characters can use the stunts. In my experience, individual charms are powerful enough to end many encounters.

[Indon]

I thought the normal (Attribute + Skill) thing might unfairly benefit Lunars/Alchemicals, as attributes cover so much ground as opposed to the narrow focus of skills.

Well, that matters way less in your system because there are almost no more charm trees - just essence-fueled effects that you can access without XP. Sure, there are 25 abilities to 9 attributes, but that now only affects excellencies - and ability-based Exalted generally have more powerful excellencies to make up for it (compare the DB's Skill+Specialty to the Lunar's Attribute - without Deadly Beastman Transformation raising the Lunar's attribute and cap, the DB has the advantage).

Sidereals have the downside of needing to buy a bunch of excellencies that aren't too stellar either, but in return you gave them the ability to use their powers to do new things, which is a pretty big benefit if you ask me.

[TheCountAlucard]

Just Caste abilities? Why not Favored as well? :smallfrown: If I'm wanting to play a Zenith Caste, but still want to pull off wuxia-level martial arts stuff, I'm kinda stuck. :smallfrown:

Even if it was Caste and Favored both, that'd just reduce some of the variety amongst your Exalts; Solars will always favor Dodge and Integrity, for one. Every Lunar would want their Caste fixed as a Full Moon, lest they lose out on the option of the perfect dodge.

[Reynard]

Well, that matters way less in your system because there are almost no more charm trees - just essence-fueled effects that you can access without XP. Sure, there are 25 abilities to 9 attributes, but that now only affects excellencies - and ability-based Exalted generally have more powerful excellencies to make up for it (compare the DB's Skill+Specialty to the Lunar's Attribute - without Deadly Beastman Transformation raising the Lunar's attribute and cap, the DB has the advantage).

Sidereals have the downside of needing to buy a bunch of excellencies that aren't too stellar either, but in return you gave them the ability to use their powers to do new things, which is a pretty big benefit if you ask me.

...Sidereal Excellencies are awesome.

[wayfare]

Just Caste abilities? Why not Favored as well? :smallfrown: If I'm wanting to play a Zenith Caste, but still want to pull off wuxia-level martial arts stuff, I'm kinda stuck. :smallfrown:

Even if it was Caste and Favored both, that'd just reduce some of the variety amongst your Exalts; Solars will always favor Dodge and Integrity, for one. Every Lunar would want their Caste fixed as a Full Moon, lest they lose out on the option of the perfect dodge.

Change made.

[Indon]

...Sidereal Excellencies are awesome.

Well, their Third Excellency is awesome. But their 1st and 2nd are the weakest of their kinds.

[wayfare]

Well, their Third Excellency is awesome. But their 1st and 2nd are the weakest of their kinds.

Auspicious ain't bad. Resurgent is a little cheaper, if I recall.

I always thought the coolest thing about playing a sidereal was the idea that you were not really going to generate super-high Dice Pools. Instead, you just get every last bit out of your standard dice pool.

One thing I really miss about 1st ed was the unique dice systems that each exaltation had:

Solars had the overcharged dice adding systems and the "count your successes twice" stuff

Lunars had ways to purchase automatic successes -- which I think solars lacked

Dragon Blooded had many re-roll mechanics

Sidereals had auspicious, and auto-virtue channels

I thought it was cool to see how these different systems really made a big difference in the way each type of exalt was played.