Ask the Devs

[Eric Minton]

Dear Exalted fans, as you may be aware from the latest Onyx Path Monday Meeting notes, Robert Vance and I have been honored with the opportunity to take on line editor duties for Exalted Third Edition. As part of that, we want to make ourselves available to the community as a resource to keep you informed as best we can about the line. Obviously there will be some questions we can't answer! But when we're not working on upcoming books, we'll drop in to touch base.

We'll be using this thread as our port of call so that we can easily find questions, and so that you only need to keep an eye on one place to read our answers.

[Robert Vance]

Could demons use Charms or spend willpower to boost their Resolve?

Yeah. 10char

[Sunder the Gold]

Solars don’t have anything like Petal Strewn Pavane and Terrestrials don’t have anything like Battle-Dancer Method.

Could they?

Could either of them have Charms to make a reflexive Performance action following an attack?

Is a dance-based Performance action an acceptable form of social influence for flurrying with a Full Defense action? Or did the writer only have verbal social influence in mind?

[TDS]

I think it'd be fun for the Storyteller to let particularly applicable Intimacies modify Resolve.

Could demons use Charms or spend willpower to boost their Resolve?

[Robert Vance]

When you use Demon of the First Circle (or Second, or Third), the binding roll is against the Demon´s Resolve.

Do Intimacies apply? If Nakhara, Sorcerer-Queen, tries to summon the demon Kalendor, but he has a negative tie towards her, because she summoned and mistreated him in the past, does it apply, raising Resolve, or it is always a roll against base Resolve?

I think it'd be fun for the Storyteller to let particularly applicable Intimacies modify Resolve.

[Clophiroth]

When you use Demon of the First Circle (or Second, or Third), the binding roll is against the Demon´s Resolve.

Do Intimacies apply? If Nakhara, Sorcerer-Queen, tries to summon the demon Kalendor, but he has a negative tie towards her, because she summoned and mistreated him in the past, does it apply, raising Resolve, or it is always a roll against base Resolve?

[Meghan Fitzgerald]

If Mahicara tries to stomp you are you able to block? I know every one around you is hit by an unblockable attack but wasn't sure what happens with the actual target.

Sorry to have missed this! You can block the stomp attack; the unblockable AoE is just the resulting shockwave.

[Zardoz]

The corebook talks about the age required for celestial exalts to reach different essence levels, but how does this apply to Terrestrials?

Essence 5 is "Vanishingly Rare" amongst Dragon-Blooded. How likely is a Solar or Lunar to bump into one in the threshold? Especially if they haven't been cautios and have called a wyld hunt down on them.

What is the kind of spread of essence among DBs? Are the majority essence 2 or 3? Is essence 1 or 4 rarer?

What about the spread in a wyld hunt? How many essence 3 or higher dragon-blooded would likely be in a wyld-hunt directed against a year-old group of anaethma?

[SaintedPhysician]

Does the Fire Signature charm for sail stack with any effects from ship weapons, since it says it uses a broadside action? If so, how does it stack with Red Dragon Cannons from Horizon Endeavor?

[Darkuwa]

With Zone of Silence Stance you can expand the range if in Aura. Does it automatically shrink to minimum size if you exit aura, or can you just no longer expand it?

[Elfive]

Ok, expanding from this: charms that expend aura. You previously indicated that if you use a charm that expends aura as part of a cost and use all same-element charms that turn (likely because of how the aura keyword works) it'll return at the end of the turn. If you expend it out of turn, it won't. So this makes it a more significant price on charms that are likely to be used out of turn, right?

Also, can you expend the aura for charms that don't have the aura keyword that have optional aura expending powers at the same time as a non-balanced off-element charm?

[The Unsung Hero]

So, I just want to make sure I understand how activating Aura works properly.

An Anathema has higher initiative than me, and goes first. I use a Fire charm to defend myself. This does nothing to give me an aura, as it's not my Combat Turn.
I take my turn. I use a bunch of water charms to attack the Anathema. I enter Water Aura at the end of my turn.
She attacks me again. I use a Fire charm to defend myself, which breaks my Aura (unless it has the balanced keyword, like the Melee excellency, or it's a Fire/Water charm, as then I can choose for it to be Water).

Is that right?

Yep.


Yep.


Yep!

I'd like to take the analogy one step further. I was in Water Aura. I use a Fire charm to defend myself which breaks my Aura.

I continue to only use Fire charms on my turn. Do I enter Fire Aura on my next turn? Can I shift from Aura to Aura each turn so long as I'm only using charms of the same element (barring balanced or multi-element charms) each turn to focus a specific Aura state?

[Robert Vance]

So, I just want to make sure I understand how activating Aura works properly.

An Anathema has higher initiative than me, and goes first. I use a Fire charm to defend myself. This does nothing to give me an aura, as it's not my Combat Turn.

Yep.

I take my turn. I use a bunch of water charms to attack the Anathema. I enter Water Aura at the end of my turn.

Yep.

She attacks me again. I use a Fire charm to defend myself, which breaks my Aura (unless it has the balanced keyword, like the Melee excellency, or it's a Fire/Water charm, as then I can choose for it to be Water).

Yep!

[The Wizard of Oz]

So, I just want to make sure I understand how activating Aura works properly.

An Anathema has higher initiative than me, and goes first. I use a Fire charm to defend myself. This does nothing to give me an aura, as it's not my Combat Turn.
I take my turn. I use a bunch of water charms to attack the Anathema. I enter Water Aura at the end of my turn.
She attacks me again. I use a Fire charm to defend myself, which breaks my Aura (unless it has the balanced keyword, like the Melee excellency, or it's a Fire/Water charm, as then I can choose for it to be Water).

Is that right?

[Eric Minton]

-As a player, what sorts of Lore-based Fact introductions have you gotten away with making?

Off the top of my head? Declaring ways to attract the attention of a couple of different elementals; establishing the presence of a manse and a ghost ship; and pinning down the details for a potential sorcerous initiation.

-As an ST, what's the wildest introduced fact you've allowed?

My players haven't shown any real interest in introducing facts as yet.

-What sort of difficulties have you assigned/had to overcome?

My ST hardly ever bothers telling me the difficulty rating, due to Lore Supernal churning out tons of successes.

-What's the most trouble a declared fact has ever gotten you into?

The Circle's Dawn Caste was annoyed when the corrupt dragon censor I'd introduced started hitting on him.