How I wish charms were written

[Sanctaphrax]

I see what you mean. DOW feels like it could use a boost, and GME does seem narrower than it did when I was writing it. How're the updated (and upgraded) versions of them?

Solid.

Tweaked just a little to give it more of that flavor, which I like.

Looks good. I think a duration of One Day would be more practical, though. And "rout" is misspelled.

Responses to your other stuff coming tomorrow, when I'm not falling over on my nose from lack of sleep.

...

I made a bunch of other charms affect intimacies, but not the big curses. Added a clause to the E3 upgrade that lets the charm detect magic that doesn't interact with the social system.

...

I forgot! And right now it's nearly 2am. I'll try not to forget again in the morning.

I await all this with bated breath.

[zenvious]

Removed by request.

[Chejop Kejak]

Forgive me if this is gauche, BlueWinds, since you've not yet had time to reply to my first batch. I just happen to have a fair bit of free time right now, and am trying to get my thoughts out there.

1. I forgot to mention this earlier, but I assume it is deliberate that your upgrades for Searing Sunfire Interdiction never give it the utility of the core one? I guess the rules are vague, but I think that “waives the Initiative cost upon success” refers to the initiative cost of the Gambit, so 2i instead of the 1i cost of the Charm. And removing the Essence 4+ upgrade means that you'll never want to use this on someone who already acted.
2. Does “this Supplements actions taken with other Abilities” seem Tag-worthy?
3. It wasn't until I read Foe-Vaulting Method in your simplified style that I realized why you'd ever want it – to bypass the defenses of a Parry monster with weak Evasion. Neat.
4. I don't object to Soaring Crane Leap making you fall half as fast as the book's version, but why the change?
5. Lightning Speed brings to mind a more general issue I have with 3E's Charms. Could I persuade you to radically reduce bonus successes the way you are Non-Charm dice? I have found their interaction with Excellencies to be a needless extra stumbling block for less-mathsy players, and besides, with EX3 clearly having the philosophy that lots of dice is fun, making “perfection”-themed Charms take away some of that fun is just a counter-intuitive choice.
6. Sic Semper Rulebreakers, Increasing Strength Exercise. However, I should note that if you want to preserve the full initial functionality (as you later indicated you do), this should also boost Withering Damage, since Strength does that. Note than I am not certain whether I want it to do that.
7. I am trying to think of a way to reliably get all my motes back with Winning Stride Discipline without the GM slapping me for shenanigans. I haven't thought of one yet, but it does concern me.
8. Unbound Eagle Approach is another Charm you dismiss which I see value in – covering a theoretically-unlimited aerial distance on a single jump seems pretty sweet to me, and oddly, none of the later jumping Charms allow this by themselves. Is this another example of something you don't want Solars to do?
9. I get that you want to weaken the total successes that Solars can get in Feats of Strength. Should I also assume, between Thunder's Might and the unremarked absence of Blink in Awareness, that getting rid of post-roll Charm activation is a goal? I can see that it vanished after a brief discussion with Sanct, but its disappearance is not explicitly mentioned... In either case, I question the nerfed TM still costing 5 motes.
10. More generally, you've cut a TON of dice-adder Feat of Strength Charms (that tree is down to four Charms, from a previous seven), but the Rush/Speed tree is still six Charms plus a Repurchase, of which all save Godspeed Steps are dice tricks/mote gain. Is there any way to trim 1-2 of those, as well? In particular, Arete-Driven Marathon Stride always bugs me for how other players need to remember it, and do Onrush Burst and Winning Stride need to be separate Charms?
11. I assume you object to the balance issues of Mountain-Crossing Leap + Monkey Leap letting you move two Range Bands?
12. It looks like after Sanct lobbied against Demon-Wasting Rush, it never got added to the cut Charms list.

[JayTee]

Unless anyone has any objections, I'm currently working on Integrity.

[BlueWinds]

JayTee , zenvious - Would you mind starting a new thread for your stuff? I'd really rather keep this one focused on a single thing, without so much other traffic and huge posts. By all means link to it though! Thanks.

[JayTee]

Ah, my mistake. I had gotten it in to my head that this was turning in to a collaborative project, and I was offering to lend a hand by picking up an ability.

Never mind me, just keep up the great work.

[BlueWinds]

This is an amazing project! Expecting another generic complaint thread, I'd avoided it until now - I am most fortunate that an errant click rectified my mistake. I love the concept here, and the Charms largely seem really well-executed. I admire it, and shall likely adopt most of this should I ever get another EX3 game off the ground.

I do have a couple of thoughts, but I'll try not to-

Oh. Oh, dear. Well, since you say so...

1. I like the keyword list, but I am curious - why have Quickshot, but remove the more-common Decisive?
2. Likewise, why have an Attack-Action Tag, but no Move-Action tag?
3. For that matter, what's going to use the Attack-Action Tag? Other than the Terrestrial versions of one or two Martial Arts Charms, I could only think of Charms which specified that they don't use your attack action. A quick search turned up Blade-Rebuking Wrath, but literally nothing else. Is this a case of future proofing?
4. What about Dual - is the idea that you'll avoid Charms being that conditional?
5. Exploding/Disappearing dice is amazing. Honestly my favorite thing in the whole project - that's one sorely-needed bit of standardization. There's no question here, just had to say it.
6. I like the idea of unified multiattack rules, but why not have a Tag for that?

1. Quickshot replaces an entire separate sentence, whereas decisive, withering, dual and unform replace one or two words each. "This charm supplements a withering Archery attack...". All else being equal, I like to avoid keywords - they split the rules text of a charm into multiple places.
2. A move-action tag is already included in the charm text - "This charm supplements a reflexive move action." Whereas an attack-action charm doesn't have an easy way to work the mechanics into the charm description.
3. Thunderclap Rush Attack and Blade Rebuking Wrath so far. There are a couple of Melee ones too. Don't know about Thrown or Martial Arts. Still seems like useful charm-tech to have in general.
4. See above. It tells me nothing the charm text didn't already tell me.
6. Doesn't need a tag - it's obvious when the rules apply - but I should totally have a note about how to divvy up initiative evenly under "Other Concepts" so I can avoid writing the same text all over the place. Good idea.

1. Would it be useful to have a term such as "split initiative" for how many common multiattacks cause the user to "divide her initiative evenly among all attacks"?
2. Also, I'm actually still unclear on what happens under these rules if someone gets Crashed partway through a multiattack (say, but a Counter Attack). Do they get to finish, then reset back out of Crash?
3. I am reasonably certain you did not intend for Excellent Solar Dodge to boost Larceny.
4. Wise Arrow, as revised, has nothing to do with Cover. Why not just make it give the target -1 Defense (plus the stuff about hitting people in Full Cover)?
5. Blood Without Balance's odd "better to be set to 6 than to 7" fussiness always bugged me. Any reason not to simply down to just a minimum of 7 damage?
6. This is a flaw going back to the book's writeup of Phantom Arrow Technique, but I always wanted a clearer idea of what "numbs" meant. I assume the intent is that it cannot be used by/against you in social influence until a scene is spent restoring it, but it always reads to me as just an overly-poetic reset for this one Charm.

1. Yep, same as above point.
2. I've tried to clear it up a bit more. This is a bit strange... but it seems like it would work dramatically and is the simplest way I can think of to handle it mechanically. Still open to suggestions.
3. Haha, nope.
4. You know, that's an excellent question. It's copied straight from core in that regard. But really, I don't like generic cap-breaking charms (which is how it functions as written). Let's update it to make it just a cover negater. A bit weaker now, but I'm fine with it having more flavor but less power.
5. That is a bit weird. Changed it to a min 6 damage, since min 7 would mean it often grants +4 (from 3i base -> 7).
6. Can spend a few words on that, sure.

1. I never liked the low-stakes minigame of Dazzling Flare Attack, and it still annoys me as an upgrade to Fiery Arrow... but at least it's not a prerequisite for anything anymore. Or is it? I believe that Shadow-Seeking Arrow and Searing Sunfire Interdiction both need Fiery as their prerequisite.
2. For whatever it may be worth, I've found Seven-Omens Shot to be one of the strongest Archery Charms. Adding successes on a Decisive attack roll to damage is a HUGE deal, especially if said attack can hit from a mile away, and is thus very likely to be an Ambush. Tacking an extra 14 dice of Decisive damage onto an opening snipe will frequently kill even an Exalt.
3. Finishing Snipe, like Phantom Arrow, suffers from prominent use of something which isn't really a rules term. My sense of OCD is super bothered by how "within range" is technically meaningless on its own, and if it means "anywhere that you can shoot with your bow," timing issues would make it impossible to use There Is No Wind and strike at Extreme Range - I'd feel better if it just said "within Long Range," or whatever the intent might be. I may literally be the only person bugged by this, though.
4. Sadly, although I briefly played a Solar Archer, she never did take Solar Spike, so I cannot attest to its power it play. I also suspect it is too strong, however - as I mentioned under Seven Omens Shot, 28 dice of Decisive Damage out of nowhere ends fights, and at least for Seven Omens, you need time to set it up, limiting its use. Spike you can just break out once a fight, whenever, and with (Initiative) extra dice as needed. On a more OCD note, I know you got "rating" from the book, but the term they wanted was "value," since that's what it uses when assigning numbers to the Intimacy ratings back on page 170.

Reading those, I'm not sure how "gratifying" you'll find them, but I hope you do - I have nothing but respect for this project!

1. Good call to simplify that a little more. New one look a bit better? Also good catch on the prerequisites for the other charms.
2. I... don't know how I missed that bit about adding extra successes to damage. I swear I read the charm four times trying to figure out what it did that Accuracy WIthout Distance didn't do better. I do at least understand it now, though I'm not convinced it should be put back in anyway.
3. Added "long" in there. Should have caught that myself in the first place.
4. How are you getting 28 dice of decisive damage from Seven Omens Shot? I can only see it adding +7, barring real absolute-best-case shinanigans (in which case you've probably already won).

[BlueWinds]

I've actually been doing something similar with the charms myself. Nothing radical as changing them (yet) - just cutting out the flavor text, maintaining the mechanics, and adjusting all s/he to a gender neutral "Their" or "They" or "The Exalt".

If you'd like me to send any of that your way to help it the thinning process, let me know. I've done it already so will save you time and effort to repeat what I've already knocked off

That's a worthy project in its own right, but I often look at the flavor text to figure out what the devs think a charm should be doing, and then I just write a charm that does that, more or less from scratch. Also, having that stripped off means there are going to be a lot of charms with literally no text left! ^^;;

Looks good. I think a duration of One Day would be more practical, though. And "rout" is misspelled.

I await all this with bated breath.

One day sounds good, changed.

I already had added the ability for Enigmatic Bureau Understanding to detect non intimacy based magic. Added Enlightened Ministerial Halo - I admit, between this and Smile, I just really want to play the relentlessly cheerful employee who makes everything run perfectly despite her boss' incompetence. A slightly manic grin as she yet again balances this month's budget behind his back.

Was there anything else I missed up to this point? There's lots of stuff going on in the thread, please let me know if I skip over a section or someone's post. Going from the front of the thread on down, to try and stay with some semblance of sane order. (hah, sane, me?)

[BlueWinds]

Forgive me if this is gauche, BlueWinds, since you've not yet had time to reply to my first batch. I just happen to have a fair bit of free time right now, and am trying to get my thoughts out there.

1. I forgot to mention this earlier, but I assume it is deliberate that your upgrades for Searing Sunfire Interdiction never give it the utility of the core one? I guess the rules are vague, but I think that “waives the Initiative cost upon success” refers to the initiative cost of the Gambit, so 2i instead of the 1i cost of the Charm. And removing the Essence 4+ upgrade means that you'll never want to use this on someone who already acted.
2. Does “this Supplements actions taken with other Abilities” seem Tag-worthy?
3. It wasn't until I read Foe-Vaulting Method in your simplified style that I realized why you'd ever want it – to bypass the defenses of a Parry monster with weak Evasion. Neat.
4. I don't object to Soaring Crane Leap making you fall half as fast as the book's version, but why the change?
5. Lightning Speed brings to mind a more general issue I have with 3E's Charms. Could I persuade you to radically reduce bonus successes the way you are Non-Charm dice? I have found their interaction with Excellencies to be a needless extra stumbling block for less-mathsy players, and besides, with EX3 clearly having the philosophy that lots of dice is fun, making “perfection”-themed Charms take away some of that fun is just a counter-intuitive choice.
6. Sic Semper Rulebreakers, Increasing Strength Exercise. However, I should note that if you want to preserve the full initial functionality (as you later indicated you do), this should also boost Withering Damage, since Strength does that. Note than I am not certain whether I want it to do that.

1. There were seriously too many repurchases for this charm, I don't mind removing one to make it more conditional. But anyway, I've bumped it to refunding 3i if the gambit succeeds - that was not an intentional change.
2. Each charm states exactly how it can be used, as the very first sentence. Redundant information would be redundant information.
3. It is a little situational, any maybe a little weak, but yeah that's the big use.
4. I'm honestly not sure? For some reason I just like one range band better, since it's in the "flying" charm tree, not the "moving fast" one.
5. If I were doing 3e from scratch, I'd have kept the 2nd excellency rather than the 1st. It is, however, too late to change this particular aspect (bonus successes are everywhere, whereas non-charm dice were just most places).
6. I'm fine with adding damage to all attack forms. Changed.

1. I am trying to think of a way to reliably get all my motes back with Winning Stride Discipline without the GM slapping me for shenanigans. I haven't thought of one yet, but it does concern me.
2. Unbound Eagle Approach is another Charm you dismiss which I see value in – covering a theoretically-unlimited aerial distance on a single jump seems pretty sweet to me, and oddly, none of the later jumping Charms allow this by themselves. Is this another example of something you don't want Solars to do?
3. I get that you want to weaken the total successes that Solars can get in Feats of Strength. Should I also assume, between Thunder's Might and the unremarked absence of Blink in Awareness, that getting rid of post-roll Charm activation is a goal? I can see that it vanished after a brief discussion with Sanct, but its disappearance is not explicitly mentioned... In either case, I question the nerfed TM still costing 5 motes.
4. More generally, you've cut a TON of dice-adder Feat of Strength Charms (that tree is down to four Charms, from a previous seven), but the Rush/Speed tree is still six Charms plus a Repurchase, of which all save Godspeed Steps are dice tricks/mote gain. Is there any way to trim 1-2 of those, as well? In particular, Arete-Driven Marathon Stride always bugs me for how other players need to remember it, and do Onrush Burst and Winning Stride need to be separate Charms?
5. I assume you object to the balance issues of Mountain-Crossing Leap + Monkey Leap letting you move two Range Bands?
6. It looks like after Sanct lobbied against Demon-Wasting Rush, it never got added to the cut Charms list.

1. You're already regaining 5m/round in combat. I figure if you can manage to have a fight while constantly winning a race, that's awesome, and a once in a game thing, and the ST should be perfectly happy to give you a one-fight +2m mote drip. Out of combat... I guess I'm really not all that worried about it.
2. Ah, yes, I suppose I should have put that as part of why it was removed. But simply flying... no, there shall be no flying, only falling with style.
3. I... actually don't remember removing Blink intentionally. ^^;; But now that it's gone, I find I don't miss the effect, so yeah, let's just say it's intentional. :P Thunder's Might is a little expensive, yes, I can see cutting 1m off the cost.
4. Huh, you're right, those can totally be combined into one charm.
5. Not a power level objection, just a general simplification.
6. Done.

[zenvious]

JayTee , zenvious - Would you mind starting a new thread for your stuff? I'd really rather keep this one focused on a single thing, without so much other traffic and huge posts. By all means link to it though! Thanks.

Hmmm... do i troll and say no? Or do i maintain character and respect your work? Hmmmmm

I'll go with absolutely. I appreciate what you are doing and appologize for the misinterpretation. Will also link you to it so you can access it as you like or needed.

If i use any of your stuff i'll make sure to tribute it to you. Your work - your design

[Chejop Kejak]

BlueWinds - many thanks for the thoughtful replies!

I do have a few points in response to them as well (assume that anything I don't explicitly respond to gets "oh, okay, that makes perfect sense" by default) - I am starting numbering anew, since otherwise all those iterative 1-6s could be a headache.

1. New versions of Wise Arrow, Blood Without Balance, Fiery Arrow, Finishing Snipe, Searing Sunfire Interdiction, and Winning Stride Discipline look good.
2. It seems you really didn't want to spend those few words on Phantom Arrow, as the Intimacy text stops mid-word.
3. Seven Omens Shot is at its craziest in an Ambush - which is not that hard to orchestrate from one mile away. Really, it's only adding about 14 of that damage, with the rest coming from a pumped-to-the-moon Initiative roll, but bringing your first strike up to "kill a major named character" is a big deal, and it's a large part of that recipe. Yes, I can understand being unsure about having this in the game, but then again, there are some other Stealth/Thrown tricks which imply that instakill assassination is meant to be a real threat to most Exalts.
4. If you're not concerned about the power level of Mountain-Crossing Leap for 2 Range Bands, you could just make it a 2m surcharge to get that effect (by definition, you have Monkey Leap already).
5. EDIT TO ADD: For the multiattack/Crash interaction, I feel strongly that the multiattack should end. (1) It's not easy to do (ignoring Crane - as one clearly should - they need to be missing the attacks AND you need one of a handful of specific Charms, mostly Dodge ones which do nothing save Crash your attackers), and (2) otherwise, multiattacks (already among the strongest attack options in the game) become the easiest way to get out of a Crash in the game - so instead of their big weakness being defensive mote-stealing, they become the mandatory answer to defensive mote-stealing.

And now that I know I'm not just annoying you, I guess I should really get on to Awareness! Though I'm not sure whether I'll have a lot to say about the Ability which isn't even pretending to adapt the book...

[BlueWinds]

I was going to post Craft this morning, but then I realized I left my thumb drive at home, and busy this evening and... well, long story short, I may not get Craft up until tomorrow.

BlueWinds - many thanks for the thoughtful replies!

I do have a few points in response to them as well (assume that anything I don't explicitly respond to gets "oh, okay, that makes perfect sense" by default) - I am starting numbering anew, since otherwise all those iterative 1-6s could be a headache.

I wanted to intersperse my comments with your stuff, but it kept resetting the numbers to 1, so I just went with it. Thanks for numbering things though, it makes it easier.

1. It seems you really didn't want to spend those few words on Phantom Arrow, as the Intimacy text stops mid-word.
2. Seven Omens Shot is at its craziest in an Ambush - which is not that hard to orchestrate from one mile away. Really, it's only adding about 14 of that damage, with the rest coming from a pumped-to-the-moon Initiative roll, but bringing your first strike up to "kill a major named character" is a big deal, and it's a large part of that recipe. Yes, I can understand being unsure about having this in the game, but then again, there are some other Stealth/Thrown tricks which imply that instakill assassination is meant to be a real threat to most Exalts.
3. If you're not concerned about the power level of Mountain-Crossing Leap for 2 Range Bands, you could just make it a 2m surcharge to get that effect (by definition, you have Monkey Leap already).
4. EDIT TO ADD: For the multiattack/Crash interaction, I feel strongly that the multiattack should end. (1) It's not easy to do (ignoring Crane - as one clearly should - they need to be missing the attacks AND you need one of a handful of specific Charms, mostly Dodge ones which do nothing save Crash your attackers), and (2) otherwise, multiattacks (already among the strongest attack options in the game) become the easiest way to get out of a Crash in the game - so instead of their big weakness being defensive mote-stealing, they become the mandatory answer to defensive mote-stealing.

And now that I know I'm not just annoying you, I guess I should really get on to Awareness! Though I'm not sure whether I'll have a lot to say about the Ability which isn't even pretending to adapt the book...

1. What do you mean distractab--- ooh, a shiny. Wait, what were we talking about again? I am more than a little catgirl.
2. Yeah. "Buy your surprise negater or die" is one of those things that should have been left in the trashbin of 2e. It's fun the first time you kill a target from a mile away, and then suddenly you're in arms-race territory again.
3. I am not concerned about the power level. I just don't think it's worth the words to add the effect.
4. I have failed at explaining what I intended, then. As I wrote it, you're supposed to wait until the end, then apply all the initiative damage at once - so you super-duper crash. But really, your interpretation is much simpler and more intuitive. Edited again.

[QuorumOf4]

I'd be happy if it just split into Fluff and Mechanics like this

Charm Name
Cost: 4m, 1wp;
Mins: Athletics 5, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Advantage
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Graceful Crane Stance, Lightning Speed

This is a bunch of fluff writing created by the charm author to fuel the players imagination. They will read it once and spend every time after that trying to skim it for the mechanics. So why put mechanics here..

This Is where you put the actual mechanics that player need to reference every time they look at the charm. IE Roll Double 9's, Reroll 1's until they fail to appear.

[BlueWinds]

After thinking about the subject due to another thread, I've gone through and clarified all the Clash and Counterattack charms. Should be no functional changes, except that there's no longer a need for a Clash keyword at all.

http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/m...t-does-this-do

You'll notice that the one counterattack charm so far (Solar Cross-Counter) explains exactly how its counterattack works: It's a reflexive charm, activated after you've taken withering damage. Other charms will be handled the same way.

I'd be happy if it just split into Fluff and Mechanics like this

That would be ok, but honestly I found the fluff for most charms really, really boring. "You're good at your job!" can only be rephrased so many times before it starts to grate. If a charm feels like it needs fluff... then IMO the mechanics and charm name have failed to convey what they needed to.

Take Fire-Eating Fist as an example. "It also allows her to apply Force-Rending Strike to energy attacks from beyond close range." With the name and that line, I think the intended imagery is pretty clear, and beyond "here's a hint as to what it might look like," I'd really rather leave it open to player and Storyteller interpretation. In a whiteroom it can be hard to imagine and feel a little bare, but in actual play I've found that it's usually pretty obvious what's happening when charms that aren't just "I'm good at my job" are in use.

[Chejop Kejak]

I wanted to intersperse my comments with your stuff, but it kept resetting the numbers to 1, so I just went with it. Thanks for numbering things though, it makes it easier.

Ah, that makes sense. Serves me right for using the forum's bullet system - I'll number by hand to avoid that now.

I have failed at explaining what I intended, then. As I wrote it, you're supposed to wait until the end, then apply all the initiative damage at once - so you super-duper crash. But really, your interpretation is much simpler and more intuitive. Edited again.

How ironic, that I only understand what you meant as I dissuade you from it. I think I got too caught up in "counterattacks still occur, but-" and didn't read the rest closely enough. My bad!

I read Awareness, and there's one last part of this discussion which I still am unsure about. Number time!

Yeah. "Buy your surprise negater or die" is one of those things that should have been left in the trashbin of 2e. It's fun the first time you kill a target from a mile away, and then suddenly you're in arms-race territory again.

1) Not unreasonable. Without Seven Omens, though, there might be a need for a (less overwhelming) Decisive damage boost. Archery Tiger Technique?

2) Curse-Catching Instinct is an awesome new Charm – my hat is off to both you and Sanct – but I do find it peculiar how the longest Charm in this simplified Charm write-up project is one the project itself created. I'm trying to come up with an idea to alleviate that, but no luck so far.

3) Why does JUST the +4 level of Vigilant Friend Technique get lumped into “etc”? “+4 anywhere on the same plane of existence, and +5 on a different one” is admittedly longer, but etc-ing a single entry out of five just feels off to me.

4) Foe-Scenting Method is still listed as removed, even though you reused that name for a new Charm.

5) Inner Eye Focus and Unswerving Eye Method are also gone with no mention at the page bottom, and also get called out by Sanct in the same post as Blink did. I guess you got rid of a ton of stuff after that discussion.

6) Fragility-Creating Examination adds non-Charm dice? I know what you're trying to accomplish here, but to avoid opening the door, why not reduce the Difficulty?

Meanwhile, under "shameless plugging," I have just started a thread for things a little less focused than discussing these specific Charms - it includes a few removed Charms (with more on the way!), as well as my own take on the "what can I do with Awareness" sidebar. Might be a better place for work like what Zenvious did, too - come and take a look!