Exalted: Fair Folk questions

[Endless Query]

So, in an Exalted game I may be playing a Fair Folk, but there's a few things I'm attempting to discern.

Firstly: I notice about 80% of what Fair Folk do are useless in Creation, which I can deal with, but it does note that they can learn Terrestrial Martial Arts. Does that mean Terrestrial Martial Arts (of its various forms) are on their charm list, or would they have to pay cross-type XP to learn them? (I've never been sure exactly where the various Martial Arts exist in terms of lists, like it seems like Sidereals, Lunars, and all the various Solar forms have Celestial Martial Arts as regular access, and then Sidereals have their special martial arts which Solars can learn... With special training but without paying the wrong charm type costs like an Eclipse caste? I've never been sure here, and now it's suddenly relevant)

Secondly: The details on what artifacts they can use in creation is thin. I mean, I assume they can attune to the "wrong" magical materials like everyone else (and by "wrong" I mean "all of them") but their essence pool is quite small so taking a 10 mote hit there for a weapon is pretty brutal. In GWM it seems like they can just make their own versions of all the artifact weapons, sans material bonuses, but that's still generally about 5 motes, isn't very well explored how it works/how the weapon looks (I've just kind of assumed you'd decide yourself and all), and... Well am I just better taking advantage of the ease of getting high resources and running around with Perfect gear which will get me almost as large numbers but without eating my mote pool?

Thirdly: I really just kind of assume taking enough Freehold to have your own Cyst and Pennants is the best way to go about not having to be a psychic vampire too much. Is this so?

Fourthly: Assumption of Dreams and Passions state that you may embody an emotion, belief, or disguise yourself as a person. Firstly, does using a disguise form hid your normally inhuman features, or do you just have to convince everyone that you are totally a regular human ignore the pointy ears, please save me my +1 social success? Or do you actually resemble more what you're disguised as rather than an elfy thing? Additionally, can you choose disguises outside of "I look specifically like this person" but instead "I look like this kind of person" so, for example, rather than masquerading as a particular noble, could I masquerade as, well, a wandering noble, someone people might not have heard of, but someone who makes sense to be traveling about with large amounts of money and so on. Or can you disguise yourself as a person who doesn't exist? There's a lot of ground that isn't covered. Also, what's an acceptable belief? Could you, say, incarnate a belief of superiority of skill, helping you to convince people that you're better at them in something (or all things?)

Axillary Fourthly: In combination with the previous, Elegant Muse Attitude lets you reflexively spend 1 mote as an innate power to add 2 dice to any roll that the emotion(s)/belief(s) you incarnated as would support. So, firstly, does this stack with itself? Can you pay that 1 mote more than once and continue adding 2 dice as though it were some sort of thematic excellency? If so, does it have a dice cap? I assume it can't be added to unrolled checks as there's no text for that, but outside of that, what are the limits on this ability, other than your relatively small essence pool?

Fifthly: If the game is expected to spend about 90% of its time in creation, what're good general purpose tools to have around to keep up with the Exalts you're apt to be interacting with?

[Yuki Akuma]

1) Scroll of Errata mentions nothing about MA charm costs being different - so 6 xp, just like their normal charms. (For that matter, download Scroll of Errata. There's a lot of Raksha errata in there.) Note that Raksha can only learn TMAs if they have a tutor - they're like Enlightened Mortals in that regard.

2) Only Exalted can attune to the 'wrong' magical material type and gets its magical material bonuses, and Raksha don't have one. So they make their artifacts from Gossamer instead. Which can look however you like, yes. Artifact weapons generally aren't that great. Perfect weapons can sometimes even be just as good as the lower-dot ones. (I remember getting a Perfect short sword that was just one damage lower than my orichalcum short daiklaves...)

4a) Errata says 1m per die. So yes, it's an excellency basically. Raksha dice cap is (Essence). (Note that, thanks to the Merged keyword, you also gain Sovereign Elemental Shape, King of Beasts Method and Subtle Wraith Arts when you buy it. Which is neat.)

5) You cannot keep up with Exalts. Do your best to avoid them.

(I'm afraid I don't know enough about Raksha to answer 3 and 4.)

Seriously, Scroll of Errata. Download it.

[Endless Query]

Hrm, in the case of 5, what about a vague spitting distance? As the rest of the party are apt to be Exalts. Not very optimal ones, mind you, but I think we're looking at like 4 solars a lunar and myself on this one.

Also, according to the text you *can* attune to regular artifacts, but you can't pay the double to get the material bonus, so far as I can tell. Also wow they gave Raksha a bunch more stuff in the Errata e_e...

And make an entire mess of trying to play one. Honestly, having tightly controlled virtue channels so you don't go quasi-suicidally insane was bad enough, what is this Stasis nonsense?

Actually the errata seems kind of ridiculous, what with rewriting large portions of the book wholesale and completely altering the mechanics, I mean, reading the errata makes it seem like a completely different game e_e

[TheCountAlucard]

Hrm, in the case of 5, what about a vague spitting distance? As the rest of the party are apt to be Exalts. Not very optimal ones, mind you, but I think we're looking at like 4 solars a lunar and myself on this one.Social combat can be pretty awesome for a Raksha. It's a trivial thing to get Appearance 7, take a Charm that removes that "+3/-3" Appearance modifier cap, make all your social attacks Unnatural Mental Influence that costs one willpower higher than usual to resist, instill penalties on anyone who doesn't go along with the way you intend, and be able to converse with a dozen people at once. At character creation. :smalleek:


And make an entire mess of trying to play one.Nonono, trust me, this is for the better.


Honestly, having tightly controlled virtue channels so you don't go quasi-suicidally insane was bad enough, what is this Stasis nonsense?Stasis is, as far as I can tell, something that functions akin to the Great Curse.


...what with rewriting large portions of the book wholesale and completely altering the mechanics, I mean, reading the errata makes it seem like a completely different game e_eThat's because a lot of what the original writers wrote was bad. Making infinity copies of yourself at chargen is bad. Bestowing infinity mutations on yourself is bad. Having the vast majority of your Charms be useless simply by dint of where you are is bad. Having mortals able to beat your best and biggest tricks simply by dint of having put dots in Socialize is bad. Playing a member of an infinitely-large race and thus making your character completely faceless is bad.

[Yuki Akuma]

A lot of Scroll of Errata completely rewrites some books. The books that haven't been totally rewritten haven't been worked on yet.

A lot of Exalted writers have no idea what they're doing.

[TheCountAlucard]

A lot of Exalted writers have no idea what they're doing.One of the most depressing things I've had to discover in the course of my experience with this game. :frown:

[meschlum]

So, in an Exalted game I may be playing a Fair Folk, but there's a few things I'm attempting to discern.

I approve.


Firstly: I notice about 80% of what Fair Folk do are useless in Creation, which I can deal with, but it does note that they can learn Terrestrial Martial Arts. Does that mean Terrestrial Martial Arts (of its various forms) are on their charm list, or would they have to pay cross-type XP to learn them?

TMA: learn as Dragonblooded, I believe. Or possibly mortals. Either way, it's expensive. The text does say something about this, somewhere.

Post-errata, a lot more charms have direct applications in Creation.

Pre- and post-errata, Fair Folk work in three ways in Creation: a) be a social nuke. b) Be a pile of mutations so large you can't see anything under it (also, be immortal), and c) use artifacts to do Whatever You Want.


Secondly: The details on what artifacts they can use in creation is thin. I mean, I assume they can attune to the "wrong" magical materials like everyone else (and by "wrong" I mean "all of them") but their essence pool is quite small so taking a 10 mote hit there for a weapon is pretty brutal. In GWM it seems like they can just make their own versions of all the artifact weapons, sans material bonuses, but that's still generally about 5 motes, isn't very well explored how it works/how the weapon looks (I've just kind of assumed you'd decide yourself and all), and... Well am I just better taking advantage of the ease of getting high resources and running around with Perfect gear which will get me almost as large numbers but without eating my mote pool?

If you want to rely on upper tier artifact weapons and armor, you're in trouble.

Wyld Treasures (Ring items) can look like whatever is appropriate, and provide equivalents to artifacts of the same level, without MM bonuses. If you make your own, you get a small extra bonus to Attack, Defense, and Rate, I believe. Check the description of Wyld Treasures in GWM. For Armor, check Armor Which is Not for how to combine Shaping and Creation-based armors, granting some extra Soak.

Debatably, you can get your Retinue to commit the motes for your weapons in your stead. Unless you have Retinue 4+ (and thus access to Heroic Commoners with Essence 2), this limits you to things with a 10 mote committment cost at most.

Gossamer items give you lots of bonuses. Weapons start out with lower Str required and a few extras, and they can be made perfect for added fun. Armor has 0 fatigue and 0 mobility, so Super Light Plate is the name of the game. If it's perfect, check with your GM whether you can stack the bonuses to soak, as that's the only thing you benefit from. Or get gossamer armor that reinvigorates you and helps you move? Lack of Hardness is an issue.

The real solution is a 4-5 dot behemoth. Its natural weapons are attuned 3-4 dot artifact weapons (and enhancable with all the Fair Folk natural weaopn enhancing mutations), and it has +20/20 soak to start with. Give it Assumption of Dreams and Passion so it looks like you, and send it out in your stead. With gossamer equipment. If it dies, Unshaped Sword Transformation lets you resurrect it.

If you must get into fights, take a 1-dot Oneiromancy. A Crown which makes its wearer invincible, or some such, and activate Heart Stopping Numinous Power. Elegant Muse Attitude (or Bestial / Elemental analogs) gives you +3 dice (and +1.5 DV) when you attack, World Angering Elemental Mastery (and equivalents) give foes a -5 external penalty to attacks and defenses. Net result is equivalent to +13 dice in your favor, for attack and defense. And you still have 3 points free to add things to your Oneiromancy.

I favor either Heart Stealing Kiss (consume the willpower of the first person who attacks you each scene), or Bestial Transformation (turn people who attack you into goldfish. Specifically, goldfish who cannot breathe air).



Thirdly: I really just kind of assume taking enough Freehold to have your own Cyst and Pennants is the best way to go about not having to be a psychic vampire too much. Is this so?

No.

Pre-errata, Stunt Pool 3+ lets you regain 6+ motes per scene.
Post-errata, a 1-dot artifact Chancel gives you 4 portable Middlemarch waypoints, for mote recovery, hiding, forging Wyld devices, and more. It fits in your pocket. And with Retinue 1, the commoner who is committing the motes to it is inside too.

Banquet of Crumbs (plus Stunt Pool) can tide you over as long as you're in interesting places.



Fourthly: Assumption of Dreams and Passions state that you may embody an emotion, belief, or disguise yourself as a person. Firstly, does using a disguise form hid your normally inhuman features, or do you just have to convince everyone that you are totally a regular human ignore the pointy ears, please save me my +1 social success? Or do you actually resemble more what you're disguised as rather than an elfy thing? Additionally, can you choose disguises outside of "I look specifically like this person" but instead "I look like this kind of person" so, for example, rather than masquerading as a particular noble, could I masquerade as, well, a wandering noble, someone people might not have heard of, but someone who makes sense to be traveling about with large amounts of money and so on. Or can you disguise yourself as a person who doesn't exist? There's a lot of ground that isn't covered. Also, what's an acceptable belief? Could you, say, incarnate a belief of superiority of skill, helping you to convince people that you're better at them in something (or all things?)

Disguise: yes and no. Of course. You remain humanoid, so a disguise as the local god-king's pet Tyrant Lizard would be relying on the +1 success (and the fact that it is, definitionally, a disguise, so... cognitive dissonance in Creation must be impressive). A disguise as the local god-king would have you look more like the god-king than the god-king does (you have a +1 success, after all).

That said, you do end up looking like a creation-born if you are copying one (in fact, with anything but Bestial Form, this can still be the case. Fire Shape types could just be very tanned). You don't have any bonus to concealing your fae nature, but it should only come up if people are suspicious.

Gladdening Visage is a Tier 1 charm, and can be put into a 1-dot Adjuration or Oneiromancy. This ensures that no one will suspect you of being a Fair Folk.

Adored by All the World and its companion charms are what gives you status in local society - if you don't want to do it the slow, normal way, that is.

You disguise yourself as someone. Awakened Dream Manufacture can create someones. Problem solved, but you still only get a bonus to looking like that person - some stunting may be required for anything else.

Beliefs are open-ended, but a narrow focus isn't always a good idea. More importantly, the belief isn't about you, it's a general thing. So it isn't that you are a master swordsbeing, it's that sword mastery will solve all problems.



Axillary Fourthly: In combination with the previous, Elegant Muse Attitude lets you reflexively spend 1 mote as an innate power to add 2 dice to any roll that the emotion(s)/belief(s) you incarnated as would support. So, firstly, does this stack with itself? Can you pay that 1 mote more than once and continue adding 2 dice as though it were some sort of thematic excellency? If so, does it have a dice cap? I assume it can't be added to unrolled checks as there's no text for that, but outside of that, what are the limits on this ability, other than your relatively small essence pool?

Does not stack. Is a dice adder post-errata, so it caps at Essence (see Heart Stopping Numinous Power if this is an issue).

It could be added to your defense 'roll', for a minor bonus to DV.

If you're the one spending the motes, the limits are your creativity. If it's part of an artifact, there is a single application, but it always works (and is free).



Fifthly: If the game is expected to spend about 90% of its time in creation, what're good general purpose tools to have around to keep up with the Exalts you're apt to be interacting with?

Artifacts.
Assumption of the Living Kingdom (or City's Heart, to reduce price) lets you affect everyone within a few miles of where you are. Enjoy.
Remember that Crown of Invincibility I hinted at above? Set it so it works for your friends, and suddenly the Exalts want to be your friends.
Landscapes, with Translucent Dream Sheathing Technology for SFX.
A Chancel gives you LOTS of options. Including, potentially, portable 5-dot Manses. Or Unshaped.
Social (often Cup) charms can be very powerful, and affect large areas.
Long term, the Artifact creation charms are incredibly versatile.
A high Style background (post errata: 2 charms work instead) gives you options up to Solar level Sorcery (harder post-errata, so call it Terrestrial instead).
Minions.


Incidentally, ignore Stasis. It is entirely devoid of risk.

Own a commoner.
Give commoner it's Heart (-1 Stasis)
Sword Shape the Heart back (no Stasis, as it's a commoner)
Repeat.

If you have a Chancel, you can do the above in Creation, so you're set.

[Endless Query]

Er, to be honest, I'm not feeling it. Having a decent assumption form (not a great one, mind you, just one with a little flexibility) has gone from being a matter of picking up the charms for it and the Gossemar background so you can afford it, to suddenly requiring you to permanently commit to one core form *and* requiring Essence commitment, and Fair Folk have like... The 2nd least amount of Motes in the game to spend on such things.

And Stasis is not an equivalent for the Great Curse. Not by a long shot. Bedlam was vaguely equivalent, providing a set of circumstances (emptying any one of your sets of Virtue channels) and then making you act crazy. Except instead of making you act in a way that could be worked into your character's nature, or could be played with, Bedlam lasted substantially *longer* in general and required your character to do things like intentionally harm their allies to for their own detriment, or destroy their own possession and harm themselves because... I don't know, it's just what the rules say. I'll admit it wasn't the best version of the Great Curse ever to be inflicted on a character type, but it was probably one of the easier ones to avoid having, which was good, because it was *ludicrously* nasty.

So they decided what they needed was a proper Great Curse with a 10 track which, instead of causing you to act odd when it fills or whatever, slowly *kills* your character once triggered and forces you to RP along very specific lines to re-ignite your character's creative spark so you don't die. Wait what? I mean, I'm finding myself agreeing with your previous statement, but I don't really feel the Book of Errata is demonstrating itself to be the source of superior judgement here.

Oh, right, I forgot, there's another way to get rid of your stasis other than acting like a super socialite, you can fall into Bedlam! And I DO hope you chose Valor on that one, because the rest are pretty much suicidal.

Now, I'll be honest, I don't know anything about this infinite copy thing, and while I will admit removing the Glamour Resistance mechanic is nice, on the by and large these changes actually seem to require my character be *more* faceless than before, mandating that I behave in very specific ways to avoid a sudden loss of ability to regain motes, and taking away a lot of the Assumption customizability by making it too expensive to use much of.

Were the Echo charms a good idea? Oh yeah, no, there's a substantial portion of good stuff here, but honestly, I don't see why playing a Raksha needed to be *more* onerous, and while a lot of stuff certainly *needed* the shift it seems to have gone from "Huh some of this stuff wasn't all that well thought through how does this work?" to "Huh, they just don't want us playing these..." And it's a little frustrating.

----------------------------------------------

Edit line, I seem to have posted while someone else was, give me a moment.

For the TMA thing, if they learn it as Dragon Blooded do, that's... Good so far as I can tell, since that would make it a charm that they have on their "list" just not favored. So that'd be tolerable if I wanted to acquire it.

As for Gossamer items, that sounds rather interesting, where are the rules for it? I seemed to have missed that in my browsing.

As for invincibility, I fear my GM has been denying me access ever since the first time I asked if I could have Bastion of the Self (Heart) to at least make me feel properly superior to all the mortals we ran into >_>

Heart stealing kiss sounds neat, I'll have to look at that...


Now, honesty time, I wasn't really planning on having a bunch of minions due to a quirk of my character, from the look of it, that's going to completely and utterly hose me, huh?

Also, don't you still kind of want/need a pennant in case the game decides to spend a few weeks on the road without any scenes occurring? Also I was kind of using Imposition of Law so some passive mote regen seemed necessary, can that actually be overcome with just style stunting and crumbs?

Thanks for some of the clarifications on Assumptions of Dreams and Passions as well as the Muse stuff.

And I guess I'll have to look into some of these rules as I'm not familiar with some of what you're speaking of here. Though to be honest I've largely found Fair Folk artifacts to be... Kind of confusing. Where would I find information on these Chancel things?

[meschlum]

(errata rant)



Assumptions: Take a 1-dot Adjuration with Assumption of XX on it. Done, requires 1 committed mote. And you get another mutation point to use for something else.

That's post-errata, where mutation points are no longer an issue. Pre-errata, a higher dot Adjuration reduced the mutation cost, so was possibly better.


Stasis: remains irrelevant. If you dislike the revolving rescued commoner, give the Grace of your choice to a commoner whose Heart you own. Have them attune to it, and send you into Bedlam. Your Stasis goes poof. Your commoner stops maintaining you in Bedlam. You are fine.

You have no commoners? Soul Carving Artifice lets you create a patch of Wyld stuff in Creation (in a daydream). Enter the daydream, create a commoner. Done. Said commoner does not last longer than the daydream, but it has performed its function.


Post-errata power: has dropped, mostly due to egregious abuses being removed. Ask me about How to Kill Sol Irresistibly pre-errata some day (it is sort of borderline, and only really kills everything without an always on Shaping Defense, but eh). Hasn't actually dropped that much, because a lots of options haven't been errata'd at all. May have increased in Creation due to more charms allowing some diversification rather than piling on artifacts. Has increased due to insane abuses being added (Cold Iron is no longer relevant. All Consuming God Monster Stance now gives all benefits).




As for Gossamer items, that sounds rather interesting, where are the rules for it? I seemed to have missed that in my browsing.

Essence Forging Art, Gossamer Forging Art. Ring Charms. GWM is... unreliably edited.

Also check page... 92? Where Graecs are described. Each of your Graces is also a fine item that (on top of being fine) gives you +Essence dice to a specialty. Enjoy your Sword.



As for invincibility, I fear my GM has been denying me access ever since the first time I asked if I could have Bastion of the Self (Heart) to at least make me feel properly superior to all the mortals we ran into >_>

2e hates the Bastions anyway. If your GM won't give you the tools to fight with, send a behemoth in your place. They're expendable.



Heart stealing kiss sounds neat, I'll have to look at that...

It's much better than that post-errata: it works as a mote battery with no maximum capacity. And it'll keep on filling up (while draining the willpower of your foes) for at least a season...



Now, honesty time, I wasn't really planning on having a bunch of minions due to a quirk of my character, from the look of it, that's going to completely and utterly hose me, huh?

Minions commit motes for artifacts. They can be stored Elsewhere, and do nothing but commit motes, so think of it as an extra (minor) cost to your artifact background - if you take a lot of artifacts (you should, GM permitting).

Post-errata, it's possible to make do (at Dragonblood level) in Creation without artifacts. It's hard, but feasible. So you have that option.

Or you take a Chancel, and carry your minions in your pocket, only pulling them out when it's time for a montage scene in which you assemble the Ultimate Device of Doom for your friends.



Also, don't you still kind of want/need a pennant in case the game decides to spend a few weeks on the road without any scenes occurring? Also I was kind of using Imposition of Law so some passive mote regen seemed necessary, can that actually be overcome with just style stunting and crumbs?

Pennant: costs 1 background dot, lets someone else spy on you constantly, prevents you from losing motes in Creation.

Chancel: costs 1 artifact dot (less than a background dot), lets you walk into your portable Middlemarch at will, where you can respire motes at an incredible rate, warp time flow, create 2364 ostrich plume hats, swap Assumptions, change your Motivation...


Use a 1-dot Adjuration to get Imposition of Law. 1 committed mote, and it's always on. Better post-errata, since you don't have to worry about mutation points.


Style stunt your banquet of Crumbs: at least +2 motes, possibly a lot more. Sadly, post-errata, stunt motes gained in Creation vanish at the end of the scene. So you either stunt a scene every day at dawn for the 1 mote you need to spend, or you do something else. Like go into your Chancel to stunt your motes back.



Thanks for some of the clarifications on Assumptions of Dreams and Passions as well as the Muse stuff.

Happy to help!


And I guess I'll have to look into some of these rules as I'm not familiar with some of what you're speaking of here. Though to be honest I've largely found Fair Folk artifacts to be... Kind of confusing. Where would I find information on these Chancel things?

Chancels are in the errata, the new Grace magic treasure for the Way Grace.

Artifacts are The Answer. And shiny.

What's your question?