My Own Take On A Craft Rewrite That Inclu

[norraba]

I like what you're doing. I found myself in the same position you did a few months back and did a rewrite of the craft system myself so I know it's quite a bit of work. When I did my craft rewrite, I was pretty focused on a concept I refer to as pacing. Which is to say, I was focused on the average number of rolls it would take a player to generate the resources needed to create artifact (where I assumed the artifact would take 6 intervals to create).

Did you do any similar tests on your system?

hi Demac, i think its a bit amusing how everyone is making their own craft rewrites, someone on the discord was actually joking about how we would have one per user pretty soon.

About pacing, the answer is no, it was not my focus so i did not take that into account, in part because my initial thought was that i was removing dice tricks like bluewinds, so i borrowed the goal numbers and difficulties from their rewrite trusting that they had done that work already, however i realized after i put together my pdf that giving the points the ability to lower the goal number and keeping the one dice trick that is in the silver points subtree throws all that out the window. I know i need to fix this but havn't been able to get around to that yet, and honestly i am not sure how to run those tests.

if you have any advice on how to do this, or insight on how you went about it, i would love to hear it so i could make this rewrite balanced and complete, thankyou very much for the attention you've given it so far, and i'll be sure to give your rewrite a read through as well.

Gaara glad to see that you like it, sorry for not responding before, i actually just came up with concepts for what to do for the charms after the form, still developing this whole thing and going to be looking at other homebrew martial arts in order to make sure that everything looks good, but i feel like i have the core concepts of what i want to do with the tree right now, so hopefully i'll start work on it soon.

Mockery i see what you mean, and that makes a lot of sense and takes it off of me of having to make that work mechanically since i can just put it in there that it should function like it is mentioned on page 177. ill start a rewrite of chains fall away based on your sugestions soon and then post it up. i kind of like the direction you were heading with red anvils too and i might be giving that charm a look over too so keep an eye out.

[Demac]

hi Demac, i think its a bit amusing how everyone is making their own craft rewrites, someone on the discord was actually joking about how we would have one per user pretty soon.

About pacing, the answer is no, it was not my focus so i did not take that into account, in part because my initial thought was that i was removing dice tricks like bluewinds, so i borrowed the goal numbers and difficulties from their rewrite trusting that they had done that work already, however i realized after i put together my pdf that giving the points the ability to lower the goal number and keeping the one dice trick that is in the silver points subtree throws all that out the window. I know i need to fix this but havn't been able to get around to that yet, and honestly i am not sure how to run those tests.

Well my craft rewrite is actually more accurately called a Mod. My goal was to keep the pacing the same while reducing the overhead on GM and the Players. I also didn't want to spend alot of time rewriting charms. I wanted everything simple enough to where players could refer to a chart to see what the cost of something was and what the rewards for doing it were. All I did was take silver points out of the system, reduce gold point awards for major projects and change the concept of merging major slots to create superior slots into one where you simply paid X amount of gold points to upgrade a slot. It makes the process much more.... chartable. I also standardized difficulties and tied crafting objectives to stunting.

I'm saying all of that because it impacts the way I ran my tests. I was able to hold several things constant between the RAW and my mod. I was able to make an excel sheet that modelled the numbers for me. I tested the way several charms affected each system. The more things you can hold constant between the systems, the easier it is to see the impacts of the changes. So if you're worried about pacing (which not everyone is), then you basically need to quantify how many player resources are needed to build an artifact and then follow your system from the beginning to see how many rolls it would take on average for your players to reach that amount of resources.

[Xerxes]

I've had quick skim, this looks awesome. Although I've also now realised that my personal biggest bugbear with Craft (having never actually use the system) can be simply fixed by your fix for decoupling some slot access from craft xp.

Will give it a more thorough run-through when I'm looking at a bigger screen. One thought, though: I don't get the core of what a Touchstone is, from this description. Devotion and lava seem really disparate examples, without much of a common theme to them. Having some examples of how they interact with the mechanics of the evocations would help understand what makes them function.

Will give these a more thorough go-through when I have a bigger screen.

[norraba]

I'm saying all of that because it impacts the way I ran my tests. I was able to hold several things constant between the RAW and my mod. I was able to make an excel sheet that modelled the numbers for me. I tested the way several charms affected each system. The more things you can hold constant between the systems, the easier it is to see the impacts of the changes. So if you're worried about pacing (which not everyone is), then you basically need to quantify how many player resources are needed to build an artifact and then follow your system from the beginning to see how many rolls it would take on average for your players to reach that amount of resources.

thanks for the advice and bringing this to my attention, i'm actually talking with my group, and we are going to try to work through this together to make sure the pacing is not broken and works at the table.

Xerxes thanks for looking it over, and yea i wanted to make simple but impactful changes to the craft rules specifically in order to make it as accesable for every type of crafting character. look forward to seeing what you think.

[norraba]

Xerxes sorry i was in so much of a rush to answer i forgot the second part of your question about clarifications for touchstones.

to start the touchstone is one of the, in my opinion, brilliant concepts that Totentanz designed in their rewrite which i included in my own rewrite of the system. they function as guidlines for both how the evocations of an artifact should function and which magical material you should use when constructing it.

i personally liked this concept right away because it fits into my own interpretation of the changing nature of evocations in the system, and how it says that they form from the personal bond between the exalt and the artifact. if you look at my personal thoughts on this which i put at the end of the rules, i don't interpret this as being entirely different evocations with entirely new concepts for an artifact based on each person who forms a bond with it. a daiklave that that is designed with poisoning evocations is not going to suddenly develop new evocations that have nothing to do with poisoning just because it is being wielded by someone new. in this case one of the daiklave's touchstones would be poison, and all or at least most of its evocations should have something to do with poisoning, even if they are different types of poisoning between different bearers of the weapon. each artifact can have a number of different touchstones that can interact or have completely different evocations depending on the bearer, so if it is an incredibly sharp daiklave that poisons, then its touchstones could be sharp and poison, or if it is a daiklave that results in someone being poisoned before they are ever cut, then its touchstones could be poison and time. The specific shape that the evocations take might vary, but a daiklave with the touchstone poison and time is never going to suddenly develop evocations that lets it burn people on contact through superheating, although it could burn them through some form of acidic poison.
Alternatively if poison is the defining concept of the weapon with no other one being important, then maybe every one of its touchstone slots (The Number of which is determined by the level of the artifact as written in the section under touchstones within the subject of special materials) will be poison.

the other thing that made me love touchstones is that it also makes it so that you cant just throw random magical materials in there and call it a day, i can not use frozen lightening in my artifact with the touchstone of poison, because that makes no sense. for my artifact that has the touchstone of poison and time, i might use the blood of an especially poisonous insect that only appears in certain parts of the forests of halta and starmetal to fill its special materials, if i add the touchstone of deadly to indicate that i want the poison effects to always cause harm, then i might add some soulsteel, or i could forge the blade in a shadowland to fill that special material slot.
If poison was the only thing that was important to me for designing it, and the only guideline i wanted to provide for future evocations, then i might find a certain kind of poison for each one of its touchstones that i filled with that touchstone, except one that i would add the color of jade that adds poison effects. so a daiklave that has the poison touchstone 4 times, might have three differnt elements of poison as special materials and the right color of jade as the fourth. alternatively if the poison used is rare enough, it could fill all three of these touchstones, it is really up to the st to determine the power level of each exotic ingredient, but personally i would base it on how difficult it is to come by. the incredibly rare poison from the forests of halta might be what i would consider powerful enough to fill two, where as the poison collected from a toxic behemoth would fill more than three.

[norraba]

Thinking about cutting my craft genesis charm (spirit gathering industry) from this rewrite after this answer from the dev post concerning craft genesis, which is a shame since it's one of my charms that I'm fond of, but if I do I'll put something similar to it in an artifact that I'm creating right now and add it as an artifact crafting tool to the rewrite.

If you think I should keep it let me know.

Has craft Genesis been relegated entirely to sorcerous workings now?

Yeah. 10char

[Gaara]

Hello norraba

I've just exposed your martial arts craft concept to one of my Twilight player and he's really excited with it

He doesn't have the martial art merits though.

So based on your first draft of charms, I try to develop an evocation tree for his crafting hammer. Mastery and Terrestrial become approximately Resonant and Disonant

Fortunately (or Unfortunately) we don't play oftenly so I have a lot of time to develop all the tree.

I have a question about

Unnamed Charm 1

Cost: ? ; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Suplemental
Keywords: mastery
Duration: ?
Prerequisite Charms: Breath of the Dragon Architect

this charm will supplement an expression of their stylist breath, allowing her to extend her range to medium and to give her attacks the piercing tag. and allows them to use the breath to grapple/disarm her opponent with the breath

mastery: grapple or disarm gambits may be taken against essence number of opponents

AN: as can probably be guessed by not even having a name yet this is less than even a rough draft and may not be representative of the direction i decide to ultimately go with this

If the attack extend to medium range does it mean that the martial artist has to aim ?

I will certainly have other questions as I continue to develop all the evocations

[norraba]

Hello Guest

I've just exposed your martial arts craft concept to one of my Twilight player and he's really excited with it

He doesn't have the martial art merits though.

So based on your first draft of charms, I try to develop an evocation tree for his crafting hammer. Mastery and Terrestrial become approximately Resonant and Disonant

Fortunately (or Unfortunately) we don't play oftenly so I have a lot of time to develop all the tree.

I have a question about



If the attack extend to medium range does it mean that the martial artist has to aim ?

I will certainly have other questions as I continue to develop all the evocations

Hey Gaara, so happy you like what I have so far, sorry it’s taken me so long to reply I’ve been away from the forums and in a kind I creative slump exalted wise for a bit as I’ve been focused on running edge of the empire games for my group as our normal GM needed a break from running exalted.

I need some time to review my work but I would be more than happy to share my creative notes with you on this, as the martial arts is one of my favorite aspects of the rewrite that I’m doing.

Now that arms is finally out it’s likely that an update to all of this will be forthcoming, as well as the completion of my antagonists and martial arts sections.

Very excited to see that you are already thinking of crafting artifacts that your player can use as a medium for the martial arts.

As for having to aim, I’ll have to check up on that, but I do believe that when I wrote it I was operating under the understanding that all medium attacks in this game need an aim in order to prevent a penalty on th roll, I might be wrong though, the only medium ranged attacks I’ve ever used were with my righteous devil stylist and he has always had to aim.

[Gaara]

Thank you for giving me some of your time.

All of your ideas (even just concept) are welcome because I'm sure there's a lot of interesting thing that should be done with your Martial Art. If I developp some of your ideas into Evocation in the future I will post it here so you can tell me if I go wrong with the mechanics or the general concept.

Unnamed Charm 2

Cost: ? ; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 1
Type: supplemental?
Keywords: ?
Duration: ?
Prerequisite Charms: UNC1

this one is going to supplement a dodge or withdraw action, haven't worked it out yet

AN: also very rough draft

So another question with this one. Could it be an Evocation where you add Craft to the base of the Evasion DV (Dexterity+Dodge+Craft)/2 rounded up (or replace Dodge by Craft if Overpowered) ?

Also, if you add Craft because of the structure you create, could it help to disengage if the attack is succesfully Dodge ? Maybe by giving a free reflexive Disengage attempt just after ?

[norraba]

Gaara let me get back to you on that, I’m away from my lab top right now but I’ve actually developed a few of these charms a lot further than what I have on here with the help of others from the exalted dischord, when I get home I’ll share what I got with you.

I will say that in most of the charms I have incorporated benefits based on the stylists level of craft architecture or craft, so I wouldn’t design evocations for the hammer based on improving the martial art but rather that improve the crafters abilities in these areas, but that is simply because your character is a crafter who I’m assuming made the hammer with crafting in mind.

If however they made the hammer with craft martial arts in mind then it would make sense to have evocations that directly play off the MA charms themselves. But honestly as long as you can justify it within the theme of the artifact it should be fine.

For example, my characters first artifact that they crafted was a dragon sigh wand named the dragons Sheppard, it he didn’t craft it to just be an archery weapon he crafted it specifically for the use of martial arts in a moment of desperation, so it’s evocations have as much to do with improving martial arts and crafting as it does with improving his ability to shoot, so it has developed evocations to work with all of his martial arts which include righteous devil style, metaphrast style, and silver voiced nightingale style.

[norraba]

So another question with this one. Could it be an Evocation where you add Craft to the base of the Evasion DV (Dexterity+Dodge+Craft)/2 rounded up (or replace Dodge by Craft if Overpowered) ?

Also, if you add Craft because of the structure you create, could it help to disengage if the attack is succesfully Dodge ? Maybe by giving a free reflexive Disengage attempt just after ?

so reading back over my notes, the idea of this charm is that the stylist is creating either a pillar from the battle field that lifts them out of the way of an attack and/or propels them away from the battle field, or a tunnel that helps them avoid the attack and/or escape from the battle field.

as for modifiers, i was going to have it provide (craft architecture/geomancy)/2 automatic sucesses to either roll, but since that just emulates the calculation that you listed above i will probably use that instead.

i am thinking of adding a mastery ability that allows this to also benefit going to ground and withdrawl, since they are in the same vein as the other two, but they use differnt dice pools so im not sure if i should, for that matter im not sure if thats even worth a mastery tag and shouldn't just be part of the ability from the get go with it having a terestrial tag that states that the player can only do those at a lesser benefit.

as for the unfortunate lack of a name for this charm, i am planning on taking some advice from a post that Momoyo is Best Girl made a while ago about how exalted martial arts is not as wuxia as it likes to seem, and in this way i will be developing the lore behind the martial arts in order to make a name for this ability based on the opponent it was used to defeat or outsmart. As i have set a theme for the martial art by having its founder be named after a mythic arab figure, Al-Khadir, all of the characters in the martial arts lore will also be pulled from arab folklore, with heavy mining of 1001 nights.

Edit: here is what i'm thinking to have for this charm

The Wisdom of Yunnan, The King of Fools

Cost: ? ; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2
Type: supplemental
Keywords: ?
Duration: ?
Prerequisite Charms: When Gilgamesh Met Enkidu (this will be the new name of the previously unnamed charm 1)

It was not when facing his mightiest of foes that Al-Khadir faced his greatest challenges, for even in their anger or passion they still possessed a sense of honor that could be met with skill, and such was not the case when he faced King Yunan who sought his life even after he was saved by Al-Khadir’s own medicine. It was then that a simple wisdom occurred to him, that sometimes, the wisest method of controlling the field of battle is by precluding yourself from it.

The stylist summoning their breath creates a way for themselves to exit the fight, be it a tunnel through which they can escape, or a pillar shooting forth from the earth to propel them from the field, or simply the ground beneath them shifting to carry them away from the fray, they have employed the wisdom of Yunan and decided to remove themselves from this unwise endeavor.

This charm supplements the stylists attempts to Dodge, Disengage, Withdraw, and Go To Ground against an enemy combatant, adding (Craft Architecture/2 rounded up) automatic success to the stylists static dv or dice pool.

Mastery: When the Solar is attempting to withdraw from combat or go to ground, she does so as if she is an additional range band away from her opponent, and must maintain stealth for one round less than usual.

Edit 2: oh i goofed and tagged the wrong person it wasn't momo's post it was Jen i dont know how i mixed them up

[Gaara]

norraba I really would be glad to read about the developped charm once you will post them. In fact, my Twilight is searching a way to help other in combat. He doesn't have the Martial Arts merit and don't have Combat Favor abilities. So I find the idea of using your Martial Art Charms like Evocations in his newly Crafting Hammer that he find in his tomb. He really love the idea of fighting with the help of the Dragon Lines and I already imagine all the fantastic stunt he could do.

Your inspiration about 1001 nights is quite interesting. My Twilight is from Chiaroscuro because he found the mystical Glass of this city quite fascinating. He also like the Naruto's character behind my forum's name. Maybe should I try to developp some Evocation with Sand and Glass

[norraba]

norraba I really would be glad to read about the developped charm once you will post them. In fact, my Twilight is searching a way to help other in combat. He doesn't have the Martial Arts merit and don't have Combat Favor abilities. So I find the idea of using your Martial Art Charms like Evocations in his newly Crafting Hammer that he find in his tomb. He really love the idea of fighting with the help of the Dragon Lines and I already imagine all the fantastic stunt he could do.

Your inspiration about 1001 nights is quite interesting. My Twilight is from Chiaroscuro because he found the mystical Glass of this city quite fascinating. He also like the Naruto's character behind my forum's name. Maybe should I try to developp some Evocation with Sand and Glass

yea my game is also based in chiaroscaro which i see as being heavily middle eastern, and i am middle eastern myself with a great love for the folktales of my peoples as well as the pre-arab folktales of the region, so i always like to use them as references when i am introducing things to the setting.

if you plan on not leaving the south then you could do far worse then doing evocations based primarily in sand and glass, the moves i have for my martial arts use any base material and transform it into something that can hold shape so it is more flexible but if you want it to be specifically themed to the south then sand and glass is definitely a great way to go about it.

also i have added what is pretty much close to a final draft of the charm in an edit of the post above.

[Gaara]

Edit: here is what i'm thinking to have for this charm

The Wisdom of Yunnan, The King of Fools

Cost: ? ; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2
Type: supplemental
Keywords: ?
Duration: ?
Prerequisite Charms: When Gilgamesh Met Enkidu (this will be the new name of the previously unnamed charm 1)

It was not when facing his mightiest of foes that Al-Khadir faced his greatest challenges, for even in their anger or passion they still possessed a sense of honor that could be met with skill, and such was not the case when he faced King Yunan who sought his life even after he was saved by Al-Khadir’s own medicine. It was then that a simple wisdom occurred to him, that sometimes, the wisest method of controlling the field of battle is by precluding yourself from it.

The stylist summoning their breath creates a way for themselves to exit the fight, be it a tunnel through which they can escape, or a pillar shooting forth from the earth to propel them from the field, or simply the ground beneath them shifting to carry them away from the fray, they have employed the wisdom of Yunan and decided to remove themselves from this unwise endeavor.

This charm supplements the stylists attempts to Dodge, Disengage, Withdraw, and Go To Ground against an enemy combatant, adding (Craft Architecture/2 rounded up) automatic success to the stylists static dv or dice pool.

Mastery: When the Solar is attempting to withdraw from combat or go to ground, she does so as if she is an additional range band away from her opponent, and must maintain stealth for one round less than usual.

I really like what you've done with this one. I think I will keep it as you describe it

Unnamed Charm 1

Cost: ? ; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Suplemental
Keywords: mastery
Duration: ?
Prerequisite Charms: Breath of the Dragon Architect

this charm will supplement an expression of their stylist breath, allowing her to extend her range to medium and to give her attacks the piercing tag. and allows them to use the breath to grapple/disarm her opponent with the breath

mastery: grapple or disarm gambits may be taken against essence number of opponents

AN: as can probably be guessed by not even having a name yet this is less than even a rough draft and may not be representative of the direction i decide to ultimately go with this

This one, I will probably change a little. Tell me what you're thinking:


When Gilgamesh Met Enkidu

Cost: ? ; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Suplemental
Keywords: mastery
Duration: ?
Prerequisite Charms: Breath of the Dragon Architect

this charm will supplement an expression of their stylist breath, allowing her to extend her range to medium and to give her attacks the piercing and smashing tag. and allows them to use the breath to disarm her opponent with the breath

mastery: When target is smashing to the ground by the breath, he takes environmental damage (corresponding to the structure crushing him) Damage : "Craft of the martial artist" B / Round Difficulty : "Essence of the martial artist" (Stamina+Resistance). To rise from prone when crushed by the structure is a miscellaneous action Strength+Athletics Difficulty : "Essence of the martial artist"

Not sure about the interval and all the difficulties

[norraba]

I really like what you've done with this one. I think I will keep it as you describe it



This one, I will probably change a little. Tell me what you're thinking:


When Gilgamesh Met Enkidu

Cost: ? ; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Suplemental
Keywords: mastery
Duration: ?
Prerequisite Charms: Breath of the Dragon Architect

this charm will supplement an expression of their stylist breath, allowing her to extend her range to medium and to give her attacks the piercing and smashing tag. and allows them to use the breath to disarm her opponent with the breath

mastery: When target is smashing to the ground by the breath, he takes environmental damage (corresponding to the structure crushing him) Damage : "Craft of the martial artist" B / Round Difficulty : "Essence of the martial artist" (Stamina+Resistance). To rise from prone when crushed by the structure is a miscellaneous action Strength+Athletics Difficulty : "Essence of the martial artist"

Not sure about the interval and all the difficulties

Hmm I’ll have to look at it more closely I could probably iron it out for you a bit, it is not a change I would go with for my version since I want specificallly to do disarming and grapples with the move, but it is a cool effect, however the name would have to be changed since it refers to a mythic wrestling match between two figures so it doesn’t make sense in your version if there is no grappling involved.