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Discussions/Essence

2012-06-22T13:57:24Z

Black Angel:

In [[Garden]]'s Exalted game I noticed something strange. All of the Solar PCs had essence 5. The reason they gave for buying essence 5 varied but basically boiled down to getting more motes. They had no charms that required essence 5 and no real reason to have it in character, and I began to think...

I propose to introduce a house rule in my own games (that I may or may not run in the future) that you can only increase your essence if you have at least five charms that require your current essence to use. In other words, to buy essence 3 you must have at least five charms that require essence 2. In this way you can demonstrate an increasing control over essence as you progress, and prevent people having strangely incongruous essence ratings.

What do you think?
- [[CorlanDashiva]]

On the one hand, I like it :)

On the other hand, that could make the jump between three and four Essence a bit hard on a non-combat type, as (IIRC) the majority of Essence 3 Charms are Dawny. Not a serious problem, save for the Twillights in the audience.

On the third hand, I don't quite see the issue with just letting PCs buy up their Essence and get more motes. Has that actually posed some problems for you, or is there just an increasing amount of felt setting incongruity? Maybe you should just notch up the pace of challenges the PCs are facing a bit, so they don't have the time needed to train up their Essence increases. - [[DariusSolluman]]

Well it didn't really help that we'd decided not to use training time... The main problem I found was that a lot of things will not affect or will have trouble affecting people with essence higher than your own, so everyone rushes to increase their essence without any sort of in character reason. It just struck me as wrong, but I'd be happy to hear other ways to prevent it.

Of course it's all a learning experience. Never again will I ignore training times, for example :-P - [[CorlanDashiva]]

Yeah. That's what I've found with Exalted- I'm used to house ruling to hell and back White Wolf games, to get them just so. But the more stuff I changed in Exalted, rather than try and think about the setting as a whole, the more dissatisfied I got.

Next game, I'm running almost by the book, with the addition of the Mass Combat stuff. - [[DariusSolluman]]

I'd use a modified form of this rule - 2 Charms. This is easy enough to get, and fulfils the purpose of 'demonstrating basic competence' without making people contrive Charms just to get to the next Essence rank. From what I can tell, Essence is a measure of quality, not education; the fact that you have to go and sit on a mountain to raise your Essence is more about retaining the structure of the game (raising Traits of any kind requires a training time and experience expenditure) than it is about simulating any kind of in-game reality. You could think of it as 'realizing what you can already do' rather than 'expending your abilities', I guess. So I wouldn't expect people to be honing their Essence manipulation to raise their Essence Trait; rather, I want them to be having spiritual breakthroughs (CLANG! The axe split a stone at Jauhareh's feet. She did not remember stepping away... but she must have, because she was still alive). - [[FourWillowsWeeping]]

From what I've heard about the new Power Combat rules, high Essence ratings become more than just getting access to more motes. - [[RichardX1]]

I'd be overjoyed if my players asked to blow 32 XP to get +10 motes and the occasional extra die in some Charms. What's the problem here? -- [[BillGarrett]]

:Actually, as [[RichardX1]] indicated, Power Combat makes Essence far more critical; it's added to all your Dodge rolls, and (even more importantly) determines your minimum damage. Also, the Twilight and Zenith anima powers scale with Essence. --[[Toram]]

::That's still fine :) Minimum damage is the biggest factor there; I personally don't use Power Combat, and even so, 32 XP for Essence 5 is worth that benefit. I think my big objection with the "N Charms requiring Essence X" idea is that you must intend to buy Charms (which have an obvious mechanical use in the game) before you are allowed to buy Essence (which has an obvious mechanical use in the game), and that you are just fine if you take one but not if you take the other. What the hey? :) Must you create Essence 5 Charms if none are in print that you want? -- [[BillGarrett]]

::To put my last point in another way, let's say a Solar said "I want to buy Nephilpal's hypothetical Blazing Soul Discipline Charm, which gives me +10 motes". This is not an Essence raise, and the end result is the same as the players' stated goals, and is simultaneously cheaper and less generally useful. Would this be blocked? And if not, why the difference? The original poster's point amounts to "my PCs want Ess 5 for motes. this is bad, I want to block it."

::The only real objection I seem to see is "Essence raises should have clearly-defined reasons in the specific form of Charm requirements". But as has been pointed out by several people here, Essence benefits many other things. Is the problem that the players only focus on the higher Essence pools? As far as the perceived mismatch, it doesn't seem incongruous at all that someone should develop a higher mastery of Essence, and THEN later (or not at all) develop a specific technique to put that general mastery to use. As a programmer, I often have to develop a neat trick in response to a specific coding challenge, but just as often, a new coding project springs to mind BECAUSE I learned a new general trick. -- [[BillGarrett]]

Regarding the original poster's question, imposing charm prereqs on Essence seems like trying to fix the hole left by removing training times with a patch that's not the right shape. Training times are a relatively important part of the mechanical balance, and if you remove them, it's going to break things, as you discovered. --[[Toram]]

On that note about Twilights, it wouldn't be bad for them if you let spells count as charms. Then they have enough essence 3, and the most 4 and 5 charms of anyone. [[Myrlan]]

As i understand it, a Solar should be able to get Essence 3 from freebies at char generation, then Essence 4 later through Exp they need to meditatate for at least 3 months and it costs 24 EXP, now then they need somewhere safe and out of the way where they won't be disturbed by anyone. To get Essence 5 you must be Exalted for a minimum of a normal mortal lifespan say 30 years , it costs 32 exp and takes 4 months of solid meditation as a minimun depending on dice rolls. Any PC who does this is going to be high essence sure but assuming you ignore the min time requirements to get Essence 5, with those 56 EXP you can get a few charms or ability increases and pummel the Essence 5 characters into the next incarnation. Plus interupting their meditation time is a really fun way for people to upset those Essence 5 wannabe's.
[[Eldmar]]
: Actually, that's Essence 6. You can reach Essence 5 in play without too much trouble. - [[FrivYeti]]

Really? I guess that must be a house rule that our Solar's ST came up with and we are using then. I asumed that this was cannon. where abouts does it say this in the books? I can flash it under his nose and say gimme gimme! (perhaps its just to prevent my twighlight getting solar circle yet.... hmmm!! [[Eldmar]]
: Player's Guide, near the end when it's talking about downtime experience. In the core it just says that getting to Essence 6 usually requires longer than a mortal lifespan. -[[grypph]] having played characters at Essence 6+

Still need to meditate for 4 months though, by canon. --[[Darloth]]

Excellent! thank you... I will look it up tonight then give our ST my new and updated exp list on Sunday. As for the training times, the way we get around them is by writing up a list of the next few things we want to get, then organising the game in a way that we can get them, for example say I want to increase my Occult (currently 4) I would arrange to spend some time in the public Libraries or those of prominent citizens of the cities we might be in (high status characters). If I am near home I will make an excuse to stop off there and spend time in my own Artifact 5 Library. that way when i have enough exp to raise the rating I can justify getting it because I have already done the training time. the ST generaly helps out with this when he writes his stories as he knows in advance what we want for our characters and that way every body wins.
[[Eldmar]]

I have add a rule in my game to include minimal age for Essence 4 and 5. 50 years for Essence 5 and 30 years for Essence 4. That include Pre-Exaltation time too. [[Black Angel]]

Discussions/CountermagicQuestion

2012-06-21T16:37:40Z

Black Angel:

'''Can you countermagic countermagic'''? ie, if I have ISB on (raised it an hour ago)and a DB sorceror tries to countermagic it, can I use the personal shield effect of Emerald Countermagic to block it? would I need a higher circle? (Celestial to counter the DB) It seems like it '''should''' work, but then again it also seems a bit cheap... opinions? ~[[MessiahOfEndings]]

In a pure opinion sense, I'd say yes, it should work. As for if it does or not in the rules, I'm not certain either. I see no 'cheapness' in it, as you're clearly spending motes, willpower, and an action to keep that ISB up, and that's fair. You're countering his spell, after all. -- [[GreenLantern]]

I don't know about the rule but I use did it in my game. Use the same level - Emerald to Emerald - and roll an opposed Wits + Occult. The counter is canceled only if you win (not on tied). Personaly I would add that a higher level automatically succeed over a lower one. [[Black Angel]]

MansesAndDemesnes/TamingDemesnes

2012-06-21T15:35:25Z

Black Angel:

= The Problem of Demesnes =

Canonically (according to S&S), Demesnes are found 4-5 miles apart from each other through Creation, with 1-2 miles apart near the Elemental Poles. Creation currently covers 141 million square miles. That's at least 9.4 million Demesnes, 1 for every 15 square miles! Since Demesnes tend to warp living things around them, they become a serious hindrance to Creation's denizens. Humanity would fracture into thousands of different sub-species before long, as they would inexorably drawn to the pure power of Creation. But building Manses to cap them all is impossibly expensive. How can this problem be solved?

Even the Blessed Island needs a solution. On the 7.5 million sq.mi. island, there's going to be at least 500,000 Demesnes (not even counting the tons on the Imperial Mountain.) If they're all capped by Manses, that means there's like 33 hearthstones for each Dragon-Blood. Unless the Scarlett Empress had a chamber filled with glowing Hearthstones that she swam in like Uncle Scrooge in his gold vault...

Wikizens can use this page to come up with ideas to deal with these strange and widespread phenomena.

== The Flaring Solution ==
[[UncleChu]] proposed the following: "Flaring - the controlled burning of natural gas that can’t be processed for sale or use because of technical or economic reasons."

Lookshy freely distributes plans for building cheap, special Demesnes-taming towers that focus the potent Essence away from the area, allowing towns to grow in peace. Originally named Ventowers, they are commonly referred to as "Flarings." They require maintenance, so they cannot be erected in the wild and left alone, but the maintenance required is simple enough that even the smallest of communities can perform them.

Flarings stand from seven to ten feet tall, depending on the strength of the Demesnes they are capping. They have multiple "roofs" as are common with chinese or japanese architecture, but otherwise have no walls, only the bareset of structural support, and are hollow, allowing one to see the raging bonfire of Essence within. This Essence of course matches the aspect of the Demesne it caps, and provides the same amount of light as a bonfire. Anything thrown into the tower takes damage as though it were inside a bonfire. Thus, Flarings often serve as centers to festivals, as well as a means of waste disposal.

A totally feasible idea. Many of Creation's governments could have their own variations of these structures to build around their outlying lands to prevent the peasants and wildlife from turning into mighty insectoid warriors. However, by simple fact that the Flarings have to withstand the might of essence, they're gonna need some exotic materials, if not some of the 5MM outright. And no government in this Time of Tumult outside the Blessed Isle is going to leave resources like that sitting around just for the sake of stability.

Alternatively, the design of an essence plug (if not a defense-grid tap) is not only simple, it's an exercise for aspiring geomancers. Almost like a journeyman-level work, insomuch as it's ''like'' manse design, only about 20 times easier. No need to be so accurate, or ensure a hearthstone, or even make it truly stable - as long as your design has enough essence bleed-offs, you should be able to cap a demense with just basic geomantic principles, and just (as you mention) have a giant furnace of sorts. As long as your design doesn't have any essence build-up, it won't explode, and you'll be good.--[[GreenLantern]]

So while Flarings can be used very locally if resources for Manses don't exist, there needs to be a source of greater income and magitech that spanned all of Creation. We must look to a more glorious time in the past when everything was possible...

== Every Grid Needs its Grid-points ==
[[GreenLantern]] proposed a little sumpinsumpin: "My gut feeling is that if it's within, oh, anywhere in Creation as we know it, it's already got a Manse, whether we realize it or not - the Realm defense grid... If you're going to hear about this wonder-fabulous realm defense grid, I'd imagine that you've got manse-like 'taps' on these things, that divert power to the defense grid. Nothing too ornate, able to go without maintainance for thousands of years, these low rocky domes (perhaps 15 feet in radius) are an almost ignored part of the landscape, and make excellent landmarks for over-land navigation. Traditionally they're ignored in the common parlance, as they're so easy to destroy, and so common. If you want to put a 'proper' manse on top, it's trivially easy to do so, and doesn't require the kind of massive deconstruction (and owner-annoyance) as destroying a proper cap would. Just an alternative theory."

Imagine the day the Grid was activated... small mounds littered across the ground as far as the eye can see, probably hewn of whatever rock is natural for an area, probably covered over in snow, vegetation, or sand, suddenly burn with the light of whatever aspected Demesnes they were covering, solidifying Creation, obliterating the invading Fair Folk. And then, with the threat gone, quietly returning to their subtle, dormant state, quietly channeling the essence of their Demesnes away from the land, keeping it safe.

Occlude- to cause or to become closed, to absorb or absorb and retain (in chemistry), to force (air) upward from the earth's surface (in meteorology) 
These Occlusions (Occluders? Occlusionary Points? Occlud0rs? too good a word not to use --[[UncleChu]]) act just as Flarings do, except instead of just burning away excess essence, they redirect it to the Defense Grid, or back into surrounding Creation, or they just absorb it. Products of the First Age, or even of the Primordials, plugs to keep Essence under control. They are everywhere, and made to last, but not indestructible. Not at all. Demesnes still spring up all over Creation when these mounds become dislodged, destroyed, or otherwise compromised.

Perhaps the Occlusions keep themselves hidden and inconspicuous to all but the most seasoned geomancers, preventing random anarchists and Bad Things from purposely destroying them to screw up local settlements. Thus only accidents knock them open, or huge local expenditures of Essence... the same kinds of things that might create a Demesne might only be untapping one.

More from [[GreenLantern]]: The first-age ones that power the grid are most likely more complicated, and encased in some sort of uber-solid substance, probably acting as some sort of actual manse, with the hearthstone long ago removed, and placed into an array at the Imperial Manse, which powers the weapons half of the grid. My guess is that ''most'' of Creation is covered in proper first-age defense-grid taps, but anywhere there's been a lot of action would have lost them. In particular, during the Baloran Crusade, the Fair Folk would've wanted to not only weaken the defense grid's power, but also 'untie' the wyld essence flows of the region. By uncapping those Demenses, they allow significantly more 'unfettered energy' to distort the places they've been, both essentially giving the places a bit of Wyld taint as it is, and pushing people out, letting the Wyld proper in as well. Other places, such as Lookshy, would want to maintain these structures, as they're obviously a part of Creation's defense (even if helping power your enemy, the Imperial Manse would still wipe out Lookshy even if all of the taps in the Threshold were removed). In addition, the first-age taps are propbably much more sturdy than the more modern "senior projects" of aspiring Dragon-Blooded geomancers.

== Don't Worry, Man, Its Natural ==
Other people may feel that as there are no canonical explanations to tame Demesnes, it must mean there's nothing taming them other than the old ruinous Manses that the Fae didn't turn into screaming hemp ants. Perhaps that's fine. Still, considerations must be made.

Demesnes life-shaping properties, for the most part, would have to have a small area of effect, a square mile at the most (and that's still a big area, one sq.mi. for every 14 normal sq.mi). S&S states itself that creatures are drawn to these places of power, so if a Demesne was anywhere near civilization, its borders would probably be very clearly marked, and even so, probably often ignored. Think of how many youngsters would be drawn in while searching for youthful adventure, or how many broken-bodied farmers, sick of their toils, would go to lose themselves in the enhanced power of Demesnes?

Another less canon-shaking alteration is simply to lower the occurrence of Demesnes. Boooring.

== Fatty Plug Spirits ==
Maybe there're little gods or elementals expressly designed for the task of capping Demesnes for the safety of Creation. Not a bad gig... get to bathe in Primordial Essence Saunas forever. Or other spirits that move in right away to gorge on the essence flows, preventing them from washing over the land around them. But spirits can be slaughtered, or they could leave, and so you still have the crazy Demesnes waiting out there... but in less numbers.

== Lookshy Lighting and Power ==

[[JohnBiles]] ponders...

The thing for me is that it seems wasteful to simply cap off Desmenes or to be burninating off the power. Given the tone of First Age civilization, something that makes sense to me is that a lot of Desmenes may have been, in the first age, turned into power stations which, instead of being designed to empower the Exalted, were set up to power their horde of magitech devices. Various kinds of conduits were created which would absorb the essence from Desmenes and pump it into storage batteries or into facilities which required large amounts of essence, such as the factory cathedrals.

(I also agree there should be a fair number of Manses hooked into various defense grids.)

In some civilized areas, these stations have been maintained fairly well and provide power for a wide array of devices, enabling, say, Lookshy to have streetlights, air conditioning, and other luxuries that many places can only dream of. The Realm would especially benefit from this, having had the least damage inflicted during the Fair Folk Invasion, which would have wrecked a lot of these power stations.

== Regular Ol' Capstones ==

I've always gone with the idea that most of them just have a capstone of some kind on them. No manse, no hearthstone, just a big weird old rock in the ground off in a clearing in the woods that your parents always told you was a place of power. It's a good starting point for local legends. ~ [[WeepingStar]]

== Other Ideas? ==

===== Comments and Discussion =====

I came up with this problem while doing my demographics work in the Lookshy area. I determined there was a settlement for every 23 sq. mi. of land, which meant villages and Demesnes were often in WAY too close of proximity. Yet if they were all capped with Manses, Lookshy would have access to totally sick numbers of hearthstones. Which they do, but probably not twelve THOUSAND. Hearthstones would become like super-powered currency. I myself will probably go with Occlusion mounds, occasionally mixing them up with Flarings, and Manses all around the towns and cities. --[[UncleChu]]

One thought - I figure that, in general, "one demense per 15 square miles" is more like "one point of demense per 15 square miles" - so that, if you have a level-5 demense, it's the only demense within about 75 square miles. So Creation probably has, in total, 10 million "points" worth of Demense, of which perhaps 10% is actually capped with Manses or other suchness - if you assume a Pareto spread of levels, that'll get you something like 800,000 "public works" projects, 100,000 L1 hearthstones, 25,000 L2, 5,000 L3, 1,000 L4, and 200 L5. Then you look at everything in the Wonders of the Lost Age book that needs a hearthstone to power it, and that'll take out probably half of your hearthstones - leaving 5 level one's for each DB to split among their elite thaumaturgist mortal minions and L2 for themselves. Then every fifth DB gets an L3, and the extra-special leaders get the L4's and L5's. -- Ialdaboth, ''or at least that's who [[GreenLantern]] thinks wrote this, based on the change log''

:I demand you include Pareto theory in all future posts. And possibly posts others make. That is all. -- [[GreenLantern]]

:Your math is excellent, that's the kind of stuff I likes to see! However, have some new factors: The 10 million Demesnes number includes the land area that is underwater. That may affect your numberology. Second, S&S states that 25% of Manses are Lv1, 30% Lv2, 25% Lv3, 15% Lv4, 5% Lv5. Finally, the "15 sq.miles" is the area of a circle with a 4.5 mile diameter, as Demesnes average 4-5 miles from each other. I'm not familiar with Pareto, but surely this average would take into account the various power levels, so you'd need a smaller "sq. mile" chunk if you were going to use one point of Demesne per square miles.
:Hearthstone-power is definitely a consideration, especially for [[JohnBiles]]'s power system. Why build a fragile infrastructure to transfer power from Demesnes when you can build a Manse and just have a portable energy generator, the hearthstone, wherever you want. The "power-generators" would have to be significantly easy or cheap to construct, or you may as well just build the Manse for the cool Hearthstone. --[[UncleChu]]
:: Unless you're a Sidereal with Neighborhood-Relocation technique, it's harder to steal a power grid than a hearthstone :) And given the difficulty of manse construction, I would expect other solutions would tend to be easier because they can't send the power as far as a Hearthstone. --[[JohnBiles]]

S&S does indeed state that 25% of Manses are Lv1, 30% Lv2, 25% Lv3, 15% Lv4, 5% Lv5, but the keyword has to be remembered. The keyword is "Manses" not Demesne's. Yes, most Manse's aren't particularily powerful, but there's a reason for that. The Dragon-Blooded just don't have the skill to properly cap a level 5 Demesne in the Time of Tumult (I can't remember where I read this, but it might have been in S&S). Thus, there are alot of Manses that only produce a level 2 or 3 hearthstone, that are actually capping level 5 Demesne's. Instead of having the full power stone (something the geomancer couldn't pull off), the excess energy is funneled into other things, like power displays (fire fountains, light displays, etc), defense systems, and other interesting things that help the Manse. This basically means that most level 4 and 5 manses in Creation today were built in the First Age. So, while Manses may be only 5% in the level 5 range, that doesn't mean that only 5% of the capped Demesne's are level 5. For all we know, there could be a perfect spread of levels 1 through 5, and the discrepancy is simply based on the fact that very powerful demesne's are just exceptionally difficult to cap properly. --[[SmileyTPB]]

The numbers have changed significantly in 2nd Edition. According to Oadenol's Codex, "Few people live more than a week's ride from the nearest demesne, and a traveler can sometimes walk from one demesne to the next within a day." That gives us a range of 15-75 miles between demesnes. Could someone more mathematically oriented than myself run the numbers on how many demesnes we might expect in creation under the new schema? - [[Eric Minton]]

I made the math and with your numbers there is between 45 thousand and 1 million demesne. With those numbers I assume that demesne near cities are generally caped. - [[Black Angel]]