Arms of the Chosen is Out!

[houlio]

Much as the title suggests, Arms of the Chosen was just released as an advance PDF for Exalted 3rd edition on drivethrurpg. Picking it up now gets you a discount on the PoD version to come out subsequently.

I have not parsed it much, but the PDF is 175 pages, with chapters for making artifacts and evocations, weapons, armor, miscellaneous ranging from siege weapons to vehicles and hearthstones, and finally a chapter on warstriders.

[Grod_The_Giant]

How do the rules for making evocations look?

[Morty]

I've been thinking about getting it, but I figure I should start an actual Exalted game first, otherwise it's just idle curiosity. The release certainly snuck up on us. They announced it, like, yesterday.

[houlio]

How do the rules for making evocations look?

They set out guidelines on the first chapter. Basically, only 3+ dot artifacts can have evocations. At 3 dots, you can max out at 10 and they only enhance the wielder. At 4 dots, they can provide a supernatural effect that changes the way you use the artifact (e.g. A staff with time powers), and they max out at 15 evocations. The best description of five dot evocations is that they can emulate solar circle sorcery and they can have an unlimited number of evocations.

Evocations are also supposed to be unique to each wielder. If a weapon has mounted combat in its theme but you only use on foot, you can't unlock any evocations related to mounted combat on it. However, you can unlock new and different evocations on it.

Evocations also have to fall into the theme of the magical material the artifact is made from. They list the themes for each material. Different exalt types are also resonant with different materials.

Evocations have 3 types: core, charm enhancements, and ultimate powers. Core are supposed less efficient than solar charms and generally be the vast majority of evocations. Charm enhancements will upgrade different charms and can be a way to gate off later effects in evocation trees to other exalt types. Ultimate powers are supposed to be capstones with once per story limitations and very difficult reset conditions.

If these are very vague, the rest of the book is 150 pages of evocations.

[Tyrrell]

Karvara is the incarnation of a principle antithetical to Creation, a god-monster older than the world that slept for most of the First Age, lying dormant in the depths of ruined Zen-Mu. It was awoken and unleashed upon the world by the treachery of Feng Huang Morningstar, one of the Sun’s Chosen who sold his soul to the demon princes of Hell. Karvara could not exist in Creation, so wherever it went, Creation was not. The behemoth might have torn the Loom of Fate asunder and erased all Creation from memory if not for....
Then a lunar with his Dragon blooded cohort defeated it, and with the assistance of his solar bondmate they transformed it into a 60 foot mecha that hates the universe.

That's just about the Exaltedist bit of Exalted that ever exalted right there.

[Lord Raziere]

I got it. I like it.

rules for evocations seem to be:
3 dot: 10 evocations max
4 dot: 15 evocations max
5 dot: unlimited evocations

meaning basically, even a 3-dot artifact provides enough evocations to equal a full martial arts style.

I'll be honest, I mostly see 5 dots as excuses to make a Solar get evocations to imitate other Exalts by this point. "yeah, I'll just get this sword to like, get Sidereal-like evocations, because a Sidereal guy's soul was imprisoned in this and such, probably because of some tragic legend. and uuuuhhh.....Solar charms, what Solar charms, I'm learning all these cool evocations, what not I'm not a Solar, I'm just this Sidereal who really likes their sword.....yeah.....really really likes it......"

[houlio]

I'll be honest, I mostly see 5 dots as excuses to make a Solar get evocations to imitate other Exalts by this point. "yeah, I'll just get this sword to like, get Sidereal-like evocations, because a Sidereal guy's soul was imprisoned in this and such, probably because of some tragic legend. and uuuuhhh.....Solar charms, what Solar charms, I'm learning all these cool evocations, what not I'm not a Solar, I'm just this Sidereal who really likes their sword.....yeah.....really really likes it......"

I could see that being an issue. I'm not quite sure how I feel about Solars being resonant with every magical material, and orichalcum also includes some of the more extreme elemental phenomena in its purview. That said, I feel like evocations are supposed to be naturally limited through role play. The way I read it is that unlocking evocations will require a player to do things in theme with those evocations first. That way, you at least can't suddenly shift your game in new directions through evocations alone.

[Lord Raziere]

I could see that being an issue. I'm not quite sure how I feel about Solars being resonant with every magical material, and orichalcum also includes some of the more extreme elemental phenomena in its purview. That said, I feel like evocations are supposed to be naturally limited through role play. The way I read it is that unlocking evocations will require a player to do things in theme with those evocations first. That way, you at least can't suddenly shift your game in new directions through evocations alone.

What? No, thats not an issue, thats a strong point. Solars are bland otherwise.

[golentan]

What? No, thats not an issue, thats a strong point. Solars are bland otherwise.

It does run into the problem of solars again having nothing special, just "Anything you can do I can do better."

Also, given how my group broke the craft XP system over their knee... I worry about having solars reliant on gear from a game balance perspective.

[Lord Raziere]

It does run into the problem of solars again having nothing special, just "Anything you can do I can do better."

Also, given how my group broke the craft XP system over their knee... I worry about having solars reliant on gear from a game balance perspective.

Well its their own fault for being all like "Solars can be anything hurdedur" and not designing any actual splats for other Exalts, like they should be doing. Rather have that thematic artifact artifact stuff than Solar blandness. Just get one five dot artifact, stick to that theme and be awesome with it. none of the stupid breaking the system stuff. especially for that stupid system.

[golentan]

Well its their own fault for being all like "Solars can be anything hurdedur" and not designing any actual splats for other Exalts, like they should be doing. Rather have that thematic artifact artifact stuff than Solar blandness. Just get one five dot artifact, stick to that theme and be awesome with it. none of the stupid breaking the system stuff. especially for that stupid system.

Agreed. And I do like how the Warstriders they gave us look, but I've always been overly fond of warstriders.

[Morty]

I was under the impression a major reason for Solars being resonant with all the materials is that those artifacts have actually been made in some numbers since the First Age. As opposed to orichalcum. Though if I ever actually get to play an Exalted game, I probably won't have my Solar start with an artifact.

Also: are there any artifact daggers in the book? Or is short daiklaive the smallest an artifact weapon can get?

[houlio]

I was under the impression a major reason for Solars being resonant with all the materials is that those artifacts have actually been made in some numbers since the First Age. As opposed to orichalcum. Though if I ever actually get to play an Exalted game, I probably won't have my Solar start with an artifact.

Also: are there any artifact daggers in the book? Or is short daiklaive the smallest an artifact weapon can get?

That seems like a good reason. I think I would personally like to see Solars not be so unlimited in this way, even if they could still be resonant with artifacts made from orichalcum alloys.

There don't seem to be any daggers. There is a pair of short daiklaves, but the art in general seems to have far smaller sized artifact weapons in general. Hell, one of the artifacts is a razor parasol, so the canon argument about artifact weapons being effective solely because of their size seems to have been relaxed.

[Morty]

I have heard about the weird insistence on every artifact weapon being an oversized monstrosity being relaxed, yes. So I hoped we'd get some artifact daggers, but apparently no such luck. If I ever get this book and actually play that planned character of mine, I might just make up some Evocations for such a dagger myself. It's not like I have to create the whole tree from the start.

[tonberrian]

Man I have a sudden desire to build up a mecha-godzilla artifact servant. Mecha-Tyrant-Lizard!

[Morty]

I've honestly never cared much about Warstriders. But they do make for a major impact on the setting, and they're epic opponents for Exalted warriors without them to fight. So it's a win-win, really.

[SaurOps]

I've honestly never cared much about Warstriders. But they do make for a major impact on the setting, and they're epic opponents for Exalted warriors without them to fight. So it's a win-win, really.

Some developer tidbits also noted that Lunars can deal with warstriders in the event that an antagonist has one and the characters don't. Huge animal forms (planned to be available from chargen, if you get the appropriate Charm) means that the warstrider doesn't get to bully you with Legendary Size. Of course, it's still an Artifact 5 or N/A with powerful Evocations, but you can clear that first hurdle without worrying too much about it.

[Morty]

I saw those posts, yeah. They're pretty promising. A Lunar turning into a kaiju and duking it out with a warstrider is something that just should exist.

[Telwar]

I saw those posts, yeah. They're pretty promising. A Lunar turning into a kaiju and duking it out with a warstrider is something that just should exist.

That would be great.

...if the Lunar book ever comes out.

(I know, I know, shoestring operation and all...)

[SaurOps]

I saw those posts, yeah. They're pretty promising. A Lunar turning into a kaiju and duking it out with a warstrider is something that just should exist.

You don't actually need to be a kaijuu; just a tyrannosaur, elephant, yeddim, or what have you. Legendary Size is Legendary Size, and warstriders actually aren't usually all that tall.


That would be great.

...if the Lunar book ever comes out.

(I know, I know, shoestring operation and all...)

It's supposed to be the next book out after the Dragon-Blooded "block" of What Fire Has Wrought and The Realm, which are both about done, and Robert Vance has been discussing Lunars and teasing Lunar Charms for the past few weeks on twitter. It may be a bit far into the future, but it's nowhere near Infernals or Alchemicals far into the future.

[Morty]

Yeah, Dragon-Blooded are in editing and art, and Lunars are next. So it's going to happen in some foreseeable future. And hopefully we'll get previews like we did for Dragon-Blooded.