General Exalted Discussion II: No Longer Mortal

[SurlySeraph]

Speaking about Sidereal MAs, do you people have any tips for making one?

In short, carefully.

High-Essence effects tend to be a bit crazy, and it's generally agreed that most SMA are overpowered even by those standards. Sapphire Veil of Passion Style (from Glories of the Most High) is generally agreed to be the best-balanced SMA; I'm not sure why. Obsidian Shards of Infinity is generally considered the worst-balanced*, though the capstone of Charcoal March of Spiders could theoretically be used to kill everyone in Creation instantly.

The easiest way to make sure anything is balanced is to ask others to check it; I've homebrewed things with glaring problems that I never would have noticed. Post it here, and maybe on the rpg.net and White Wolf forums when you've gotten a draft of it or a good sense of where you're going with it. Here, I'd say the main things to look for are:
1. Don't put in something that beats perfect defenses. Maaybe have some unavoidable effect, but never make it completely impossible to avoid an actual hitting-person-with-a-weapon attack, because it's easy to make any hit lethal.
2. Don't let the Perfect Defenses be significantly better than the Solar PDs in the core book. Somewhat cheaper or with a less-frequently-applicable flaw of invulnerability might be acceptable. Might.
3. SMAs are about messing with reality, not just about punching (or shooting) people. Don't be afraid to make it weird.
4. Don't let it make someone unassailable.
4.a. Scene-length perfect defenses are appealing to include, but if you include one it needs to have a surcharge for each attack you block, or a gaping hole that makes it not really perfect at all, or something. Too much invincibility is not good design.
4.b. Be careful about reducing costs, and be careful about giving out any benefits, especially perfect effects, especially perfect defenses, for free. Things that reduce mote costs or help you gain back motes and willpower can be quite abusable.

*Scene-length perfect defense that also gives you a chance at an unexpected attack every time you're attacked, with negligible drawback; scene-length perfect defense that redirects the attacks to new targets and functions as long as anyone can see you; making as many as 36 clones of yourself with pretty much all your capabilities for 2m each; all your martial arts charms are free if you have a big mirror close by