What Breaks If......

[Major]

3e What Breaks If: I make global changes to reset conditions

Note: I have not gone through the rules with a fine tooth comb. I am just in the midst of the charm section now (on an old Kobo so I cannot search or flip through sections easily).

3 Reset States

Scene: All scene or shorter reset conditions get lumped into this category (I realize this makes many powers one fight only)
Day: Everything between a scene and a day (this is the middle dumping zone)
Story: Everything from day to story reset gets chucked here (not sure how much stuff this would really effect)

I am hoping nothing really breaks since this would make reset tracking much easier. Gayo's idea of a mortgage side on charm cards is a backup plan but it has been my experience that players do not track past health and willpower; motes, arete, rage, blood, etc., tend to be mostly ignored (people start off diligent but get tired of paying attention).

[The Unsung Hero]

3e What Breaks If: I make global changes to reset conditions

Note: I have not gone through the rules with a fine tooth comb. I am just in the midst of the charm section now (on an old Kobo so I cannot search or flip through sections easily).

3 Reset States

Scene: All scene or shorter reset conditions get lumped into this category (I realize this makes many powers one fight only)
Day: Everything between a scene and a day (this is the middle dumping zone)
Story: Everything from day to story reset gets chucked here (not sure how much stuff this would really effect)

I am hoping nothing really breaks since this would make reset tracking much easier. Gayo's idea of a mortgage side on charm cards is a backup plan but it has been my experience that players do not track past health and willpower; motes, arete, rage, blood, etc., tend to be mostly ignored (people start off diligent but get tired of paying attention).

Well if your group doesn't like the options presented in the book, then this set of reset conditions is probably fine. But what breaks is that it removes strategy options for players that DO keep track of those finer details of the flow of combat and want to make use of them. Your mileage may vary.

[Major]

Well if your group doesn't like the options presented in the book, then this set of reset conditions is probably fine. But what breaks is that it removes strategy options for players that DO keep track of those finer details of the flow of combat and want to make use of them. Your mileage may vary.

Yeah, I figured give the option for people which way they'd rather play. I will end up using the more abstracted systems for NPC's, but that likely will not really matter until the DB book comes out anyway since it is not like the characters will be fighting [m]any other Solars.

[Limited Reagent]

To get back to some new ground, re: the main OP point of a version of Sidereals who request all their Charms, and are granted the use of all their Charms, I don't think anything breaks exactly, but I like my Sidereals to feel like the Charms they have are *their* Charms and are expressions of *their* Abilities and *their* Essence and the fruit of *their* understanding of destiny, as Sidereals. Not things they have on loan from the Bureau or have permission to use, like an Alchemical Charm that's just been slotted into them (and maybe they need the experience to understand and use it, but it's not *them*, and it's the property of an Autochthonian state and the work of thaumaturgical genius that stands outside them).

Also, I guess from a play perspective, if you take Sidereals as all about applying the weird tools you have in a sandbox way (not something I'm totally fixated on as the point of Sidereals, but hey) then drip feeding them a Charm as something they *hint*hint* just happen to need at that time doesn't totally mesh with that. Also what happens with Ronin here?

I think it works fine and could be really fun and cool to have Sidereal Charms explicitly be like tools you requisition. Definitely more like Alchemicals. Which probably means if you make Sidereal Charms slottable it's going to complicate things, because Alchemical Charm slot stuff felt way more complicated than normal Exalted Charms to me.

I've had no trouble going the other way; opening the Sidereal Charmset and allowing custom Charms all over the place. As long as you keep them sorta weird and stick to the trees' themes, you're golden.

3e What Breaks If: I make global changes to reset conditions

Note: I have not gone through the rules with a fine tooth comb. I am just in the midst of the charm section now (on an old Kobo so I cannot search or flip through sections easily).

3 Reset States

Scene: All scene or shorter reset conditions get lumped into this category (I realize this makes many powers one fight only)
Day: Everything between a scene and a day (this is the middle dumping zone)
Story: Everything from day to story reset gets chucked here (not sure how much stuff this would really effect)

I am hoping nothing really breaks since this would make reset tracking much easier. Gayo's idea of a mortgage side on charm cards is a backup plan but it has been my experience that players do not track past health and willpower; motes, arete, rage, blood, etc., tend to be mostly ignored (people start off diligent but get tired of paying attention).

I've been playing an investigator with Divine Induction Technique, which is a full free Investigation Excellency with a recent of one scene or if you succeed a diff (Investigation - 1) or higher Investigation roll. And let me tell you, if you removed the extra reset condition, that Charm becomes way worse. Being able to chain difficult Investigation rolls by smashing them down again and again with max-excellency rolls isn't something I'd want to remove.

Frankly most of the time the reset conditions aren't hard to track at the Essence 1-2 range since you just don't have that many Charms, and few of them probably have reset conditions in the first place. And I think they're optional anyway; most reset on their own at end of scene or whatever besides, so if you don't want to deal with them you don't have to.

For NPCs I'd totally use that simplified reset system, if I was tracking Charms that closely at all (which I usually don't).

[Anasurimbor]

3e What Breaks If: I make global changes to reset conditions

Pretty much everything. Well, not quite everything, but an amazingly large number of things. There's a lot of 1/scene charms that are intended to be used substantially more often than that.

[Jay]

I read 2e Infernals waaaay back when. I think I must've forgotten most of it back then as most discussions about it passed over my head and no-one I played with was the slightest bit interested in them. I don't think they ever even featured in the campaigns I ran.

Following the revelations of just how "Ick" the fluff was in places I took to re-reading the 2e Infernals fatsplat (And Malfeas) whilst I was waiting for the E3 backer copy to drop.

I don't particularly like the charms of the Infernals or how they're arrived at - Every Exalt type has typically quite discrete powers and Charms that escalate. Infernals on the other hand had "thematic" powers that you could use if you could just wrangle the GM to nod and say "OK ... I guess ... that applies?". They were, to my mind, an abysmal mess of fudges, min-max twink powers. I'd go so far as to say I hate them and hope they die in a green fire.

But reading them I never once thought "Yay! I can create my own Charms and back-door them into being new aspects/intimacies of the Yozi and thus mess about with the infernal big-wigs!". I did come up with some specific new Charms that were applicable to certain Yozis and the like but were a lot more specific than the type in the book. But Yozi-hacking via custom Charms? No. It's not protagonizing - it's antagonizing arguably the most potent beings who exist ... the ones who, before being ganked into a side dimension, created Creation. I suspect they'd know if someone suddenly tried making them nice and squishy. I also suspect they'd react, very, very badly and quite painfully to said source of hacking!

[Ellis]

What are your thoughts on Sidereals? It seems to me they've got most of the problems you describe and their drawback of "no custom Charms" isn't a huge drawback for you, so I'm curious if there's anything you feel they have over Infernals.

[Jay]

What are your thoughts on Sidereals? It seems to me they've got most of the problems you describe and their drawback of "no custom Charms" isn't a huge drawback for you, so I'm curious if there's anything you feel they have over Infernals.

I'm tempted to bring in your signature on the response, provide a nice sultry reply ... but I'll resist!

Sidereals - Love the type, their setup and fluff, history and style. Somewhat more of a headache than the easy-to-grok Exalt types (Being Solars, Lunars, DBs, Alchies, Abyssals) but not so bad as the GSPs or Raksha (Which in another thread in about 3 replies I suddenly "got" vs re-reading the GWM book numerous times!).

The implementation of them is something I generally use as a GM fiat/plot device. Again I've never had a player either face-to-face or other the internet in the PBP games express an interest in playing one or even including them in background. I generally bring them in as NPCs to give something (Item/plot/advice) or such things. In terms of their powers/charmsets - I think, IIRC, I liked many of their Charms even if they were a little woolier and free-form compared to the easy-to-grok types. Their powers were, again IIRC, not as defined and discrete as the other types but gave a little wiggle room in how to apply them and, importantly, what they actually did.

For me - just to explain - I relate things back to an in-setting mindset. If I read "Charm X" my first thought is; what does it actually do? Easier to hit someone? Dodge in flashy strobe-like effect? Summon an essence weapon? Make me understand languages? That sort of thing. Then I think - What does this actually look like to the character and bystanders. Then - How does it actually DO the thing it's doing? Then - probably the last thing - I look at the numbers/rolls/mechanics thing it actually does.

Which is odd as I'm largely a simulationist type player who loves the numbers side and wants systems/mechanics/support for everything someone does IC! Hence why I'm not a huge fan of things like FATE and SW either - far too fuzzy for me.

Confused? That's probably why I don't get some things some times.

Take for instance Resplendent Destinies. Took me several reads to get that they're fake identities that everyone believes for a short time. That's it - but the wordyness of their actual explanation when I first read it made me wonder how Sideral X, who's supposedly instantly forgettable due to Curse, can be remembered and function and do things. It's because he's playing at being a Baker and it's just that everyone around him kind of just accepts it whilst he's playing at it. Boom. Instantly got it.

tl:dr For siddies - Not really read them in a long time, don't recall any massive issues but took a bit to grok at the time, mostly reference splats and inspiration from fluff sort of thing. Really should work on memory and having better recall of the vast amounts of powers and stuff like you other fans.

[Major]

I've been playing an investigator with Divine Induction Technique, which is a full free Investigation Excellency with a recent of one scene or if you succeed a diff (Investigation - 1) or higher Investigation roll. And let me tell you, if you removed the extra reset condition, that Charm becomes way worse. Being able to chain difficult Investigation rolls by smashing them down again and again with max-excellency rolls isn't something I'd want to remove.
Frankly most of the time the reset conditions aren't hard to track at the Essence 1-2 range since you just don't have that many Charms, and few of them probably have reset conditions in the first place. And I think they're optional anyway; most reset on their own at end of scene or whatever besides, so if you don't want to deal with them you don't have to.
For NPCs I'd totally use that simplified reset system, if I was tracking Charms that closely at all (which I usually don't).

Pretty much everything. Well, not quite everything, but an amazingly large number of things. There's a lot of 1/scene charms that are intended to be used substantially more often than that.

Hmm, good catches. I was mostly afraid of the finicky "when an X has done 10 decisive damage reset this charm" and the like powers. Knowing there are bigger, easier to track, but important scene charms is important.
Maybe what I will do then is make sure anyone with a charm that uses reset rules has a charm card with a mortgage side. That way the player has the onus of tracking the reset condition and if they fail to do so I'll use my reset rules as a backup to make sure everyone's abilities get reset eventually.
This doesn't really help with story charm resetting but that is going to be an issue in either case.

[conspiritual musings]
I am kinda suspicious that some of these rules were designed as such to make easier flow into a future CRPG product (that's what they seem like to me). If that is the case, chop chop, get it made!

[Ghosthead]

I think it works fine and could be really fun and cool to have Sidereal Charms explicitly be like tools you requisition. Definitely more like Alchemicals. Which probably means if you make Sidereal Charms slottable it's going to complicate things, because Alchemical Charm slot stuff felt way more complicated than normal Exalted Charms to me.

I've had no trouble going the other way; opening the Sidereal Charmset and allowing custom Charms all over the place. As long as you keep them sorta weird and stick to the trees' themes, you're golden.

Since this is LimitedReagent of LimitedReagent's Sidereals Charms fame, I can't be as negative towards the idea as I was. I think if I think of it as characters who have lots of Astrology (where and Astrology just goes higher than in the existing systems, and is rooted more in your enlightenment than your schmoozing skills), then I feel less negative towards it.

I think it's the semantics and situational differences from the Alchemicals do it that bugs me about the idea, particularly having to play bureaucracy to use Charms. Compare Alchemicals, and they are generally set up so that they like their states and their states like them, and will give them the tools they need to be the heroes of the state, which they're applauded as being, publicly. The people who build and maintain their Charms *want* the Charms to be used. Sidereals have a more antagonistic and secretive relationship with the bureaucracy and their elders. So there's different feel around that. You could get strong drift to ideas where the elders and gods are deeply mistrustful of PC Sidereals and are very carefully managing what power they have access to, and it seems like a negative experience. (Paperwork simulator, meet mistrustful and micromanaging boss simulator).

Plus, Alchemical Charms are very physically visceral. Having to request and install them has that analogy to being an fighter pilot, or a mecha ace. For Sidereals, I don't know. More like having to get permission to use your own power, because you're not trusted with it.

And then you could add to it the kind of invidious comparison to other Exalted (Solar and Lunars, really) that I could see cropping up, contrasting people who earn their own power through skill and effort and "deserve" it against people who are undeservingly given power as a privilege by a corrupt Heaven.

They wouldn't quite by *my* Sidereals I guess, whose power comes from their own internal enlightenment. I kind of feel like if I did want to build a Sidereal under that system, I'd totally just immediately want to make a b-line for Martial Arts and Sorcery, and not actually want to get most Ability Charms, because they wouldn't be representing the kind of internal skill and learning that I would be looking for out of Sidereals. Only when I had that kind of baseline established that the character was awesome through his own learning and enlightenment would I then want to buy into powers that are granted by Heaven. (Assuming they wouldn't have to weave the ability to use Martial Arts and Sorcery into their destiny, here).

[Limited Reagent]

You're right, it very much does change how Sidereals feel. Getting charms would invoke more james bond getting gadgets from Q as well as pull more off of spy thrillers in how distrust amongst allies seems to abound.

It'd be different, not even my kind of thing really, but still could be cool and fun.

[Ellis]

I mean, you don't need permission to access your own power. Astrology would just let you give permission for someone else to access your Charms, or prepare yourself to use them later, and sometimes as a pretty fringe benefit let you access someone else's Charms.
There definitely is a different feel around internal enlightenment versus that granted by the Maidens, though. Maybe I have different connotations because I'm religious in real life and don't mind getting things from Heaven, as it were.

[Robert Vance]

3e What Breaks If: I make global changes to reset conditions

Note: I have not gone through the rules with a fine tooth comb. I am just in the midst of the charm section now (on an old Kobo so I cannot search or flip through sections easily).

3 Reset States

Scene: All scene or shorter reset conditions get lumped into this category (I realize this makes many powers one fight only)
Day: Everything between a scene and a day (this is the middle dumping zone)
Story: Everything from day to story reset gets chucked here (not sure how much stuff this would really effect)

I am hoping nothing really breaks since this would make reset tracking much easier. Gayo's idea of a mortgage side on charm cards is a backup plan but it has been my experience that players do not track past health and willpower; motes, arete, rage, blood, etc., tend to be mostly ignored (people start off diligent but get tired of paying attention).

For everything other than scene-length, it's not going to cause any real mechanical imbalance, even though you do lose out on some of the more flavorful reset conditions. Reset conditions largely exist to prevent powerful effects form being spammed over and over, and it shouldn't be too hard for you to come up with something comparable.

For things that can be reset within the same scene you use them, this would be a downgrade, with the exact severity depending on how easy that Charm was to reset originally. I'd consider implementing some kind of low-maintenance, universal way for resetting them, like stunts of a certain level.

[Valles]

What breaks if you just cut out excellencies, so that nobody gets them?

[GhanjRho]

What breaks if you just cut out excellencies, so that nobody gets them?

A lot of versatility, getting the Excellency free in your Caste/Favored does a lot to broaden your starting power. My Dawn doesn't need to buy Ride Charms to cover for the edge cases where he needs to be really good at controlling a horse.

The basic source of Charm dice and pretty much the brunt of low-Essence Solar power. I can build a kickass swordsman with only a couple of Melee charms, IF one of them is the Excellency. From my read-through, there are very few low-Essence dice adders (if any); mostly dice tricks, which are more effective in a larger pool.Excellent Strike, for example, is much more efficient in a larger pool where 1s are more likely to show up.