1e exalted (lunar)

[Darth Stabber]

Having read up on how people play solars, and I was wondering how doable lunars are? Like some general build advice on a full moon, big bad werebear. Like do I need to take deadly beastman transformation umpteen times, or do I want to focus on different charms?

[Tyrrell]

first edition lunars are hampered greatly by their rules. They have combat charms where you can spend essence to multi attack worse than when you split your die pool with no charm at all. They have a die adder charm that is just like its prerequisite with addition of more restrictions. the best thing you can do is get your story guide to put some fixes in for you for individual charms, and perhaps lower your xp costs if you are in a mixed exalt type game.

You do have a perfect dodge that might be worth it. My advice is to buy up deadly beastman transformation umpteen times and focus on dexterity because you won't have any other way to hit things. You can get your bear nature going with soak charms which IIRC. are pretty good for first ed. lunars.

[DeadManSleeping]

1e Lunars...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNUr__-VZeQ

I mean, 2e Lunars have their problems, but 1e Lunars are an abomination of game design. Please, just save yourself a lot of pain and avoid them.

[Friv]

I am so sorry.

Okay, as a First Edition Lunar, here are the steps to make a mechanically viable character.

#1 - Be a Full Moon, because combat is the only option you have. Everything else sucks.

#2 - Sorry, should have said close combat. Ranged combat sucks.

#3 - Now that that's out of the way, always buy Deadly Beastman Technique the maximum number of times, and always buy Dexterity as high as is allowable. No exceptions. Probably balancing your Strength and Stamina is good after that.

#4 - Okay, now you have two choices. Only not really, because they aren't directly opposed, so it's mostly a matter of what you focus on first. You want to have an absurd Accuracy, and you want to have an absurd soak.

If you're going Accuracy, you want Horrifying Might at creation for +1 Dexterity, then the Gift of Hands and Arm-Array. Don't go with the claw powers, as you're going to need to pass through the identical Charms, making them a trap.

If you're going Soak, take Resilience of Nature and Wound-Knitting Power with your first buy, and then Rugged Hide. Skip Beast Armor, it's not worth the slot. You can get all of the Gifts from both trees by Essence 5, but always start with Horrifying Might.

Charm-wise, the Accuracy Lunar wants Snake Body Technique as soon as you can get it, because it's your best active defense. Note that it requires a Charm you'll never use. You also want Deadly Claw Blow, which will give you automatic success on your flurry attacks against enemies who've used up their defenses, and Scimitar Claw Method to give you +4 Accuracy unarmed attacks. If you can get yourself up to Snake Head Defense, it gives you a lot of extra attacks to burn through enemy defenses, which is going to help a lot as you reduce your multiple action penalties. At this point, you can reasonably flurry eight attacks against people you don't like at nearly full diepools, and so many more against people who can't defend themselves.

Note that your enemy is the Solar Exalt, who has stacked defenses that render your cunning approach useless. Sidereals are almost as bad. Anything else is chaff against your claws.

Never buy Extra Actions Charms, they're not worth it to you.

Also, focus on Defense II, rather than Defense I, because Defense I is crap.

The Soak Monster wants Defensive III. Hide-Toughening and Armor-Forming slow down your charge time, but they get you up to your 12B/12L soak. (At this point, you're looking at about 8B/4L from Stamina, 2B/2L from Gift, and 8B/4L from Charms, to a total of 12B/10L, with Hardness 6 against Bashing). Then hop over to Bruise-Relief and Halting the Scarlet Flow, letting you heal a lot faster than you can just with your gifts. Finally, you want to reach Luna's Fortitude just in case you reach a point where you're about to die anyway, and as many Ox-Bodies as you can manage.

Those two sets total about 20-25 Charms, which for you is about 150 experience (yay Lunars!), so that should hold you for a good chunk of the game. You'll probably want some Combos of your attack powers and your healing powers.

Artifact-wise, get some solid moonsilver armor, and add it to your total. Now win initiative, tear your enemy into tiny shreds, and laugh and laugh and laugh while he can't even hurt you back, and whenever he does you heal it away.