As someone introduced to the line in 2E, I have a hard time seeing 3E charms in general as anything more than underwhelming in a depressingly large number of cases. Being used to building 2E's paranoia paradigm in addition to achieving a feat of damage stacking (1000 dice of aggravated damage per attack in a natural flurry) that is retold as a legend in our extended gaming circle has given a very strong tint to the rose-colored glasses. So I would like to see how others who may not be as strongly slanted in their experience with the line see things and find out where my blind spots are for building and playing a well-built character.
I had started with Solars, the dice trick charms being the greatest perceived speedbump (and I can't help but see them as anything but at this point) in mechanical development of characters. Not only were these charms that you may potentially not gain any benefit what so ever for activating (ie, not rolling any 9s at all with sensory acuity prana), but they were a drain on a very precious resource. This resource can basically equate to survival when the tension is high, so charms with a low perceived "return" would often be tossed out of consideration with an admitted measure of scorn as purchasing that charm meant you had to sacrifice a potential gain in other critical areas of your concept. Couple this with a comparison of how much some of these charms cost compared to excellencies (5 motes for sensory acuity prana for an average of 1 success on 10 dice, 2 if you spent another 10m for a 20 dice pool.)
Now that I've already had my opinion of these double x charms and other dice trick charms tanked to a very low level as to only wanting to buy them when forced to for charm tree purposes. I look at the Dragon-Blooded set and I'm hard-pressed to find a non-excellency charm that costs less than 5m, with a duration longer than instant, or adds a benefit that can't be quantified as +1-2 success on average or +2 dice(with non-charm maybe) but only in a situation that might come up once per story. So I'll keep things brief by saying, I'm having a hard time wanting to spend a charm slot/xp on anything past an excellency cause it's not going to be as helpful as getting another excellency for a different ability and eat vast amounts of a very limited resource when used. So, other than excellencies, spells, evocations, and martial arts (which my character concept may not even include these things outside of excellencies) I have very little that motivates me to want to finish building a sample character.
Yet, I've noticed very few people seem to have any issues with the charm sets presented while I am sitting here wondering if I want to bother trying to pick out charms I'd want at a standard starting level.
So, what am I not seeing? What are charms you've read that got the imagination working for building a competent character? Right now I've walked into a store looking for chocolate chips and just see a bunch of raisins.
PS. Sorry if my speaking pattern is rambly, really tired at the time of writing.
I had started with Solars, the dice trick charms being the greatest perceived speedbump (and I can't help but see them as anything but at this point) in mechanical development of characters. Not only were these charms that you may potentially not gain any benefit what so ever for activating (ie, not rolling any 9s at all with sensory acuity prana), but they were a drain on a very precious resource. This resource can basically equate to survival when the tension is high, so charms with a low perceived "return" would often be tossed out of consideration with an admitted measure of scorn as purchasing that charm meant you had to sacrifice a potential gain in other critical areas of your concept. Couple this with a comparison of how much some of these charms cost compared to excellencies (5 motes for sensory acuity prana for an average of 1 success on 10 dice, 2 if you spent another 10m for a 20 dice pool.)
Now that I've already had my opinion of these double x charms and other dice trick charms tanked to a very low level as to only wanting to buy them when forced to for charm tree purposes. I look at the Dragon-Blooded set and I'm hard-pressed to find a non-excellency charm that costs less than 5m, with a duration longer than instant, or adds a benefit that can't be quantified as +1-2 success on average or +2 dice(with non-charm maybe) but only in a situation that might come up once per story. So I'll keep things brief by saying, I'm having a hard time wanting to spend a charm slot/xp on anything past an excellency cause it's not going to be as helpful as getting another excellency for a different ability and eat vast amounts of a very limited resource when used. So, other than excellencies, spells, evocations, and martial arts (which my character concept may not even include these things outside of excellencies) I have very little that motivates me to want to finish building a sample character.
Yet, I've noticed very few people seem to have any issues with the charm sets presented while I am sitting here wondering if I want to bother trying to pick out charms I'd want at a standard starting level.
So, what am I not seeing? What are charms you've read that got the imagination working for building a competent character? Right now I've walked into a store looking for chocolate chips and just see a bunch of raisins.
PS. Sorry if my speaking pattern is rambly, really tired at the time of writing.
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