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.

[Maudova]

When writing inspired pieces (location, religion, artifacts, spells, evocations, etcetera) how do you determine if your naming of things and titles adheres close or nearly hints at a thing?

Example 1: If you’re inspired by a IRL religion and you give it an exalted spin, do you use names for things in the religion or just make up new names?

Example 2: Something inspires an Artifact, maybe it’s an anime (say from Bleach) or historical (Perseus‘s invisibility helmet) do you hue closer to the names and descriptions of the original item or only reference it lightly in the evocation descriptions and names?

What’s the process you use to name or reference something without being too on the nose?

[Pharsti]

Where do new gods come from, if anywhere? How do gods get promoted? And has that changed from the way it 'should' work in the First Age to how it works in the Age of Sorrows?

As a more specific example, say some group of people build a new city - does a city father / mother spring into existence once the city reaches some Heaven-mandated size, does the god of the crossroad/harbor/valley the city started from get promoted automatically, do all the local road and field gods fight over the title, or does the celestial bureaucracy / local corrupt spirit court promote someone based on performance, favors, and / or boot licking skill?

As a more player driven option, if Zenith Bob is founding a city, is it possible for him to exert some influence on the selection / creation of a city god? Is that something normal he can do as a Celestial Exalt, or is that really more a job for questing / bribing / favor trading with either the correct celestial god, or the leader of the local spirit court?

Or is this something that will be answered in a future book about spirits?

[The Wizard of Oz]

The Strength and Stamina Excellencies are an exception to the norm for purposes of buffing their dice cap.


Animal form soak doesn't count against your dice cap. Whole different balance metric than buffing dice pools.

Thanks. Do you get a stunt bonus (+2 soak or whatever) or just the benefit of a bigger excellency cap?

I assume all this applies to damage and the Strength excellency too?

[Jefepato]

I apologize in advance for this, but can I ask how Ailment-Rectifying Method is meant to work?

I started a thread over here talking about it, and it seems like we've ended up with several different interpretations regarding what the Charm does and doesn't do.

[BrilliantRain]

Did Magistrates change much from their depictions in previous editions?

Assuming they still can’t own things, are they allowed to request that they retain artifacts that they’ve either recovered (from a rogue god or Anathema) or requisitioned from imperial sources for long term use?

Does the Realm introduce a Magistrate merit? If not, do you think being named a Magistrate warrants some specific set of merits? Should they have an effective Resources rating that represents their ability to “requisition” whatever they want within the Empire?

[Robert Vance]

Did you, by chance, mix those two Charm names up? I read it as HMU triggering off the dice from DIT rather than the other way around.

Indeed I did.

Regardless, if/when you get a chance to revisit the 3e Core book, would clarifying some of these Charm interactions and effects be on the hypothetical table?

It's an if, but I would if I had the opportunity.

[Robert Vance]

My apologies if this has been asked before but I did not find it. The core book states that if you take Brawl as a Caste / Favored ability then you can take Martial Arts as a Favored ability. Does this mean that:

1. You choose which to take and the other is not favored;
2. You take both as favored but they both count towards your total number of Caste / Favored abilities; or
3. You take both as favored but Martial Arts is considered an additional Favored ability (since most players will focus on one ability or the other)?

If you pick one, the other also counts as Caste/Favored, without counting towards your maximum.

[ThomasM]

My apologies if this has been asked before but I did not find it. The core book states that if you take Brawl as a Caste / Favored ability then you can take Martial Arts as a Favored ability. Does this mean that:

1. You choose which to take and the other is not favored;
2. You take both as favored but they both count towards your total number of Caste / Favored abilities; or
3. You take both as favored but Martial Arts is considered an additional Favored ability (since most players will focus on one ability or the other)?

[Mynorin]

Once again, we return. ^_^

My reading of Divine Inspiration Technique is that you only get the bonus once, and that it can only trigger off the dice generated by Holistic Miracle Understanding.

Did you, by chance, mix those two Charm names up? I read it as HMU triggering off the dice from DIT rather than the other way around.

I still think only ever getting 3 dice from an Essence 4 Craft Charm is rather ... underwhelming? But considering I'm trying to write a script that will do this rolling for me, all I *really* cared about was getting an answer rather than getting an answer I wanted. :P

Regardless, if/when you get a chance to revisit the 3e Core book, would clarifying some of these Charm interactions and effects be on the hypothetical table?

[Robert Vance]

I hate to be That Guy that brings up Solar Craft Charms from the Power Tree again, but ...

How does Holistic Miracle Understanding work exactly? I can't seem to find a definite answer anywhere, and it and Divine Inspiration Technique are not worded particularly well. I'll quote the two Charms below just for easy reference, but I recognize you've already clarified DIT's effects on Craft rolls.





A direct reading would indicate that when you roll the non-Charm dice from Divine Inspiration Technique generated from the initial Craft roll (i.e. for the very first time during this Craft roll), if those non-Charm dice generate 3 or more successes all on their own, add an additional 3 non-Charm dice to the resulting DIT-generated dice from them creating additional multiples of 3 successes for the overall successes.

So, if you get 29 successes off the initial roll, you get 9 more non-Charm dice from DIT. These dice generate 4 more successes, giving you 33 successes total and an additional 2 non-Charm dice from DIT. HMU activates because those 9 DIT dice gave at least 3 successes by themselves, giving you 3 more non-Charm dice. You roll those 5 and get another 3 successes, bringing you to 36 and another non-Charm die from DIT. This is no longer the "initial roll" and so HMU doesn't give its 3 non-Charm dice.

Only ever getting 3 non-Charm dice from this Charm seems really underpowered to be the effect of an Essence 4 Charm, considering the effects of other, lower Essence Charms in this tree. So perhaps a literal reading of the Charm might not be the approach here.

A second interpretation I've seen is that HMU upgrades DIT to give 4 non-Charm dice per 3 successes on the Craft roll rather than a single non-Charm die. That seems ... rather overpowered, but I have a hard time gauging what effects are in keeping with a given Essence level.

A third interpretation would be to add 3 non-Charm dice after any use of DIT whose dice generate 3 successes by themselves, ignoring how those successes might bring the total Craft successes to a new multiple of 3. So having 31 successes on the Craft roll and rolling 2 more successes from DIT dice would not trigger the effect of HMU, even though it brought you to 33 total successes and generated a new non-Charm die from DIT.

I feel like I've rambled on enough on this; this is something that's off-and-on occupied my thoughts. So I figured I'd ask now that I have an account. Any clarification you can give would be really appreciated. Thanks!

Once again, we return. ^_^

My reading of Divine Inspiration Technique is that you only get the bonus once, and that it can only trigger off the dice generated by Holistic Miracle Understanding.

[Robert Vance]

That's what I assumed, but Eska's write up says she can use her Stamina excellency to buy up to (Stamina) extra dice on a Stamina roll, or (Stamina/2) extra points of soak against an attack, or (Stamina+Attribute)/2 points of soak with an appropriate stunt.
So, how does that work?

The Strength and Stamina Excellencies are an exception to the norm for purposes of buffing their dice cap.

Also, how does Eska's soak-increasing excellency interact with turning into a bear or other high-soak animal?

Animal form soak doesn't count against your dice cap. Whole different balance metric than buffing dice pools.

[Elfive]

Would the "stunt" just permit a second attribute to add to the cap without adding dice itself or something?

[The Wizard of Oz]

That's what I assumed, but Eska's write up says she can use her Stamina excellency to buy up to (Stamina) extra dice on a Stamina roll, or (Stamina/2) extra points of soak against an attack, or (Stamina+Attribute)/2 points of soak with an appropriate stunt.
So, how does that work?
Also, how does Eska's soak-increasing excellency interact with turning into a bear or other high-soak animal?

[Robert Vance]

Can you stunt damage rolls? (Either withering or decisive)
Can you stunt soak?

No to both.