BlueWinds' house rules & Simplified Solar Charms

[BlueWinds]

I'm starting a second Exalted 3e game next month. Unlike the first one I'm running, the players are completely new to Exalted - and I was completely dreading the thought of introducing them to the 650 page behemoth of a rulebook as their first exposure to a thing I dearly love.

What to do? Well, there are plenty of sane solutions - introduce the system slowly, use Quixalted, etc - and then there's the solution I took. Rewrite the charms chapter! A second time! I'm more than a little crazy, I know.

Thus I present to you the No dicetricks, simplified Solar charmset + BlueWind's house rules. This PDF comes in two varieties.

• The version I'm distributing here. It contains house rules + a completely rewritten charms chapter and Martial Arts section. 64 pages.
• A version I will not be distributing. It contains these house rules patched into the Core rulebook. The craft system and charms chapter are replaced wholesale - the other house rules are written into place, overwriting the rules they're replacing. It is a complete RPG rulebook, designed for players of Exalted, new and old alike. 426 pages. Contains all the rules necessary to play, while cutting more than 200 pages.

The second PDF would be a massive breach of copyright to distribute, but if you already have a copy of 3e, you can compile it yourself. Instructions are in the readme.

Links:

• The git repository. Contains the .tex file used to compile the PDFs, and instructions for doing so.
• The house rules + charms PDF. Contains no material copied from 3e core, only my rewritten fan-work. Use this if you want a no-nonsense, pared down charmset, the way I think it should have been written originally.
• Instructions for compiling the "full" PDF, which is a standalone RPG book, but using my house rules and no-dicetricks charmset. Requires you to already own a copy of Ex3Final.pdf.
• The other version of my charms rewrite. Retains the dice tricks, but does away with natural language and generally simplifies things so they're easy to grasp. Use this if you want something compatible and balanced against future splats.
  • The thread where I originally developed this version.
  • Direct PDF link.

[Guancyto]

Holy crap, Blue, you're not kidding about being crazy.

Still, that's a hell of a lot more approachable than the default charms section. I'm more than a little flabbergasted that half of it can be fed into a woodchipper without (apparently!) sacrificing much at all.

[Maudova]

Awesome. I've been working on the same thing. I've cut 128 pages from the core book already just by simplifying charms and I replaced craft with an amalgam of yours, irked, sanctaphrax, and my vision. I killed all slots and craft XP, kept most of the tricks, and invented a new expertise system that replaces MA as an ability, expands lores functionality, and transforms craft.
A++ to your version. I love it.

[Maudova]

The only thing I haven't been able to replicate are the dang charm flow diagrams. It's driving me nuts.

[BlueWinds]

The only thing I haven't been able to replicate are the dang charm flow diagrams. It's driving me nuts.

I lay them out by hand in Inkscape. You can see the source SVGs here: https://github.com/BlueWinds/Ex3Char...ter/charmTrees

Basically, I made one charm box with E5, Ability 5 requirements, then copy-pasted it repeatedly, altering the name / requirements as needed. Move each copy away from the original in increments of 110px (1/2 width) and 45px (1/2 height). Move things with the keyboard, not the mouse - that's how you keep perfect alignment.

Draw a single joining arrow for each angle ("1 down, 1/2 over", "1 down, 1 over", etc), copy paste as needed.

It's a lot of work, yes, but you get much, much faster at it once you've done it for a few abilities.

[Irked]

Wow. Mad props.

[Maudova]

I lay them out by hand in Inkscape. You can see the source SVGs here: https://github.com/BlueWinds/Ex3Char...ter/charmTrees

Basically, I made one charm box with E5, Ability 5 requirements, then copy-pasted it repeatedly, altering the name / requirements as needed. Move each copy away from the original in increments of 110px (1/2 width) and 45px (1/2 height). Move things with the keyboard, not the mouse - that's how you keep perfect alignment.

Draw a single joining arrow for each angle ("1 down, 1/2 over", "1 down, 1 over", etc), copy paste as needed.

It's a lot of work, yes, but you get much, much faster at it once you've done it for a few abilities.

SNAP! Thank you!

Move things with the keyboard, not the mouse

Great pro-tip! I probably wouldn't have realized that until...ooohhh half way through the whole thing and then wanted to bash my head into my desk (design nwb here)!

[Maudova]

How did you get the Ex3 Page number box perfectly set on the bottom of the page?

[AtG]

I have to say I'm torn between being impressed at a second charm rewrite and (as a software developer) being pleased with your build process.

[BlueWinds]

How did you get the Ex3 Page number box perfectly set on the bottom of the page?

Trial and error. The code that does the page background and number is here. To paraphrase:

If the page is odd, and the "left" background to 0,0 (bottom left corner). If even, add the "right" one to 0,0.
Add the "page number background" picture - the little black box - at 292,19. I extracted this directly from the Ex3 PDF - it's the actual same image used.
If pg < 10, put the page number at 305,37.
else If pg < 100, put the page number at 302,37.
else, put it at 299,37.

The coordinates are from trial and error - I must have alt-tabbed back and forth between my PDF and Ex3 a thousand times. It's also not perfectly aligned still - the font of my page number is of a slightly different size than that on the copied pages.

I considered trying to overwrite the page numbers on the copied pages so that I could renumber the whole PDF from p. 1-400 rather than p. 1-650, but :shrug:, I was tired of working on the thing. Maybe later. Editing PDFs is much, much harder than re-creating them from scratch

[BlueWinds]

I have to say I'm torn between being impressed at a second charm rewrite and (as a software developer) being pleased with your build process.

The build process is pretty lazy. I couldn't get the "pdfpages" package to work right, which is the "correct" way to include pdf page ranges. Instead I just pop Ex3Final apart into one-page PDFs and include them via \includegraphics. That makes the final PDF way bigger than it needs to be - the background image is saved separately for each individual page, for example.

Also, I just realized that I can do \includegrahpics[page=123]{Ex3.pdf}. Wow. The whole splitting the PDF apart is 100% unnecessary. Will probably fix that at some point just because it's embarrassing.

[BlueWinds]

Thanks to Alex for fixing an overlooked bit of charm text. I've also simplified the build - no longer depends on pdftk or splitting the Ek3 pdf into one-page snippets.

The new version is linked in OP, because being in git, the same links always point to the most recent version. Hurrah!

[notanautomaton]

The house rules+charms link isn't working for me.

[BlueWinds]

The house rules+charms link isn't working for me.

Fixed! I renamed the pdf, so naturally the link broke.

[Grod_the_giant]

Holy crap, it's... it's beautiful.

Can I ask why you went back to having to purchase Excellencies separately?