Thought: Anima as the source of Essence recovery

[Daerian]

Important thing - you can use Peripheral motes instead of Personal if you want to start glowing for these cute powerful anima-fueled Charms...

[Kyeudo]

Yeah the other thing is, if you come across a glowing solar, they might have been like that for a while and recharged.

If you come across a glowing Solar, they've been like that for less than two hours. If they were in combat the whole time, they have presumably been spending motes each round. If they were out of combat, they have gotten maybe one hit of out-of-combat Essence recovery.

And if they erupt right in front of you, you're about to get a face-full of Charm.

We're assuming conflict between supernatural beings here. We expect them to be throwing Charms around. Mortals are just tissue paper before a Solar going full-throttle. If you are a member of a Wyld Hunt, this is generally a good sign - you've pushed your opponent hard and they are starting to wear down.

[Elfive]

Yeah the other thing is, if you come across a glowing solar, they might have been like that for a while and recharged.

And if they erupt right in front of you, you're about to get a face-full of Charm.

[Anasurimbor]

My point on the anima banner being an outward sign of weakness is based on a probabilistic argument. If glowing, the Exalt is likely down on motes. Not certainty, but better than 50% chance.

Being down on motes is not the same as being weaker or more vulnerable. If a Solar bursts to bonfire because she has become a Strength 10 monster, she can hardly said to be weaker. The same applies to an enhanced Join Battle or any number of other scene-long buffs.

[Kyeudo]

*double checks rules*
Ah, it's per instant rather than per round. That's a bit weird, but whatever.

Still, in the scenario given, if you up three of those amounts by a single mote, the character is all the way to totemic and is three motes worse off.

My point on the anima banner being an outward sign of weakness is based on a probabilistic argument. If glowing, the Exalt is likely down on motes. Not certainty, but better than 50% chance.

[Limited Reagent]

It's pretty easy to dump your whole pool in combat without glowing. 4m on JB, 4m on attack, then say 4m each on three separate defenses... That's 1 round and you're down 15m net. Say you were already down 10m from a previous scene, and have 8m committed to a couple artefacts. At essence 1 you're already at down 38m from the 46m you've got. Next round, 4m more on attack then two 4m defenses and your out. Ans that's not taking into account burning more using personal motes. Stretch it out another round or two if you're not defending quite so much.

Outside of combat it's even easier, if you're doing a bunch of separate read intentions and social influence and investigative rolls and awareness rolls, it stealth + athletics + awareness + investigation...

This kind of thing happened all the time in the game I was in, to a greater or lesser degree.

[The Unsung Hero]

Obviously, a Solar with an iconic anima banner is about to tear your buddy's heart out with his fist and then annihilate you with Burning Sky Apocalypse Strike.

[Kyeudo]

In third edition what level your anima is at has so little to do with how much essence you have left that's it's not an indication of anything. You can get to bonfire on a full pool, and you can empty the entire thing without glowing at all if you do it slowly enough.

While this is technically true, it's unlikely to be the case. To be completely empty without glowing, you'd need to do it entirely outside combat four motes at a time. To be at bonfire with a full pool, you'd have to do it spending exactly five motes per turn in combat. Outside those two exceptions, glowing Exalts are more likely to be missing some motes than non-glowing Exalts. Also, if an Exalt starts glowing during a fight, they likely have less Essence available than they did before they started glowing.

[Elfive]

In third edition what level your anima is at has so little to do with how much essence you have left that's it's not an indication of anything. You can get to bonfire on a full pool, and you can empty the entire thing without glowing at all if you do it slowly enough.

[Beaumis]

With that in mind, how about making anima level limit the amount of essence you can spend in one go? It'd be an interesting balance too, since you have to spend essence to increase your cap, encouraging you to play it relatively safe with your expenditures until your anima's hot enough, at which point you bust out the big guns.

It'd obviously tweak the balance, as it'd make ambushes more difficult and alpha-striking harder, and it makes all those "full free excellency" charms more attractive, but hey.

That was my train of thought actually. I just felt it should be expressed in anima because that's what the OP wanted the focus on. The base idea was to limit mote expenditure and free it up as anima progresses. Hence the "advance only one step" rule.

In my opinion, the best way to express danger through anima would be for charms to have different effects based on your anima. That would require a complete rewrite of the system though. Example:

Excellent Strike
Dim/Gloring: +1 Success to Attacks
Burning: Reroll all 1s
Iconic: [something awesome]

While I quite like Kyuendo's idea, I do think it's a bit extreme to say that the anima banner functions in an opposite way, indicating characters are less dangerous, as like, for example, "At bonfire/iconic anima display, the Dawn adds half her Essence score (round up) to her base Initiative upon resetting to base after a successful decisive attack.". I think the Anima effects are what are intended to handle this stuff by giving specific capabilities rather than general faster Essence regen.

Sadly, it is true though. Kyeudo is right when he says that anima doesn't really express dangerous because technically it is a result of becoming less dangerous. Ignoring the relatively rare charms that use anima as a currency, what makes exalts dangerous is the fact that they can spend very large amounts of essence on a single thing and make that one thing really devastating. Someone at iconic anima has already spend a significant part of his essence to get there and is, in theory, less dangerous than someone at full pools without an anima.

Among all the anima powers, there really are only five real game-changers and four of those are independent of your current anima level. Alle three Dawn abilities are major game-changers, as is the twilight's ability to have hardness in crash and the eclipses ability to sanctify an oath. Only the Twilight one interacts with anima level and it can still be used without flaring. Everything else is really neat to have but can be achieved in other ways too.

[Ghosthead]

While I quite like Kyuendo's idea, I do think it's a bit extreme to say that the anima banner functions in an opposite way, indicating characters are less dangerous, as like, for example, "At bonfire/iconic anima display, the Dawn adds half her Essence score (round up) to her base Initiative upon resetting to base after a successful decisive attack.". I think the Anima effects are what are intended to handle this stuff by giving specific capabilities rather than general faster Essence regen.

[Limited Reagent]

Then by all means, ignore it. Its your game.

I'm not sure how being dangerous can be expressed through mote regeneration. By itself, mote regeneration is sort of just there. What makes exalts dangerous isn't their mote regeneration, its the fact that they have a large mote pool in the first place and can front load their expenditure. Regeneration only ever comes into play once you have done something (dangerous). If you want to express danger in the anima itself, maybe look at some sort of passive effect?

With that in mind, how about making anima level limit the amount of essence you can spend in one go? It'd be an interesting balance too, since you have to spend essence to increase your cap, encouraging you to play it relatively safe with your expenditures until your anima's hot enough, at which point you bust out the big guns.

It'd obviously tweak the balance, as it'd make ambushes more difficult and alpha-striking harder, and it makes all those "full free excellency" charms more attractive, but hey.

[Beaumis]

Then by all means, ignore it. Its your game.

I'm not sure how being dangerous can be expressed through mote regeneration. By itself, mote regeneration is sort of just there. What makes exalts dangerous isn't their mote regeneration, its the fact that they have a large mote pool in the first place and can front load their expenditure. Regeneration only ever comes into play once you have done something (dangerous). If you want to express danger in the anima itself, maybe look at some sort of passive effect?

[Kyeudo]

I think your idea lacks a certain amount of mechanical elegance as well as putting a heavy focus on action. I was conceptualizing this as a case of the anima banner signalling a state of being dangerous rather than a state of doing dangerous things. I also didn't want something that would completely smash the existing combat balance, but instead interact with it.

[Beaumis]

It's part of the genre from which the anima banner was drawn. DBZ, Bleach, and other shonen anime often express a character's power by having them glow. However, in shonen anime, the brighter the glow the more dangerous the entity has become, which is directly counter to how the anima banner functions mechanically.

I know the origins. I just don't get the appeal.

I would argue the point that anima doesn't reflect danger/power though. Most charms that flare your anima (mote cost >=5) are rather powerful. Glorious Solar Plate/Saber definitely make you more powerful. Fivefold Bulwark Stance turns you into a parry juggernaut. Iron Kettle Body and Admant Skin Technqiue make you incredibly resilient. A full excellency makes your action very dangerous. Revolving Bow Discipline and Arrow Storm Technique are among the most devastating charms in the game.

If you really want to tie power to anima, my suggestion to link mote expenditure to anima level stands. From the top of my head, you could go with something like this:

1. You can advance only one anima level per turn.
2. Anima levels have progressively higher cost, something like 5/10/15 for glowing/burning/iconic.
3. If you do not spend the prerequisite amount of motes per turn, you lose an anima level.
4. You regenerate 0/5/7/9 motes per turn in dim/glowing/burning/iconic. Out of combat, you regenerate 5 motes per hour, 10 at rest. [Optional rule]

In the first round, you can spend up to 9 motes and will start glowing.
In the second round, you can spend up to 14 motes and and you will get to burning.
In the third and following rounds, you can spend as many motes as you want which takes you to iconic. If you spend less than 15, you drop down to burning.

This completely removes the weakness aspect of anima because it dies down really fast. Charms that shed anima limit your mote expenditure for the following turns which makes them significantly more expensive. A few edge case charms would likely need a keyword that allows you to pay the difference from your internal pool. Glorious Solar Plate and medicine charms that cost 10 motes but tend to be used in isolation or at the start of combat come to mind. You anima directly reflects your "dangerlevel" because it dictactes which charms you can use and how much you can pump up your excellencies. Full excellencies are actually not possible until burning level. The system also forces you to think ahead because going all out on offense limits your defense. Furthermore, the system also enforces combat pacing, because you can't simply nova everything.

The optional rule (4) ensures you can run neutral in glowing but you can't run a surplus because if you don't spend the regenerated five motes, you drop to dim and your regeneration stops. The higher regeneration levels have progressively higher cost, forcing you to spend at least a part of your pool to keep the anima going (min. 3 in burning, min. 6 in iconic). These numbers are untested of course, but in theory, they should prevent abuse and the bag of rats problem.

If you want to keep the exalts traceable and visible, add some secondary effect to the world that makes large expenditures of essence obvious. Maybe the place where the essence was spend seems brighter, colors are more vibrant and everything seems more alive. Maybe exalts "sweat magic" for an hour after iconic in an obvious kind of way. Let the player customize the smell.