Revision as of 04:27, 22 December 2005

Telgar's Backgrounds

• back to Telgar
• back to Backgrounds

Backgrounds are a fairly loose part of the Exalted system and not one that gets a great deal of direct attention focused upon it. Some of them, like Familiar, are in deperate need of strengthening and others just need to be clarified. These HouseRules are to introduce new Backgrounds or specify how I personally run existing ones.

General Backgrounds

Familiar

Possibly the single most underpowered background in existance. Familiars can be so vitally interesting, but yet so cripplingly expensive to get even the most mundane magical animal. These rules are based partly on Changeling: the Dreaming's Chimera background, the Familiar Backgrounds of various iterations of Mage and Exalted mortal-type character generation. Wyld rules from the Corebook and Exalted: the Lunars also figure heavily into the mix. Each dot of the background gives a specific number of Familiar points. When creating Familiars, Flaws can be added to the familiar to give it additional points on a 1-for-1 basis.

 * - 10 Familiar Points
 ** - 20 Familiar Points
 *** - 40 Familiar Points
 **** - 70 Familiar Points
 ***** - 100 Familiar Points

Familiar Defaults

• All Familiars are automatically immortal, they can not be killed unless their master is. They heal at a normal rate, but can not be killed other then by dramatic and-or exceptional means.
• All Familiars start with 1 dot in every Attribute except Appearance. Familiars may have whatever Appearance rating the player wants for no cost.

Familiar Point Costs

 1 point: 2 attributes / 3 abilities / 1 wyld point for mutations / 1 bp for merits / 1 virtue
 1 point: 2 stat-points for an attack
 2 points: 1 Willpower dot.
 2 points: Sense-sharing as in the Corebook
 2 points: 5-mote battery as in the Corebook (this can be taken multiple times)
 3 points: 1 spirit or elemental Charm (requires Essence 2 or greater)
 4 poitns: 1 dot of Essence (Familiars with Essence 2 or greater are gods, demons or elementals)

Other Familiar Notes
Powers like those from certain animals in Creatures of the Wyld or other strange and potentially powerful natural or magical abilities must be approved by the ST and are given special cost. Canon creatures will simply have a pre-determined Familiar Value, often lower then that given in Creatures of the Wyld. Ask about anything already written.

Solar Backgrounds

Abyssal Backgrounds

Terrestrial Backgrounds

Lunar Backgrounds

Familiar

Lunars, being masters of the animal world, seem in desperate need of a more advanced Familiar Background. Since the Dragon-Blooded and Abyssals have multipliers built into their Artifact backgrounds, I see no reason to deny the Lunars a similar boon. Especially since two of their backgrounds (Heart's Blood and Renown) have so little value. Lunars use the standard Familiar system to generate their Familiars, but they can split their points into multiple familiars if they wish.

 * - 20 Familiar points
 ** - 50 Familiar points
 *** - 80 Familiar points
 **** - 150 Familiar points, maximum of 120 per Familiar
 ***** - 200 Familiar points, maximum of 150 per Familiar

Sidereal Backgrounds

Comments

While I'm all for improving Familiars, I think you may have overdone it. I'll give an example with a 2-pt Familiar under your rules:

Strength 6, Dexterity 6, Stamina 5, Charisma 2, Manipulation 2, Appearance 3, Perception 2, Intelligence 2, Wits 3.
Awareness 2, Brawl 5, Dodge 5
Essence 1, Willpower 7, Compassion 1, Conviction 3, Temperance 2, Valor 4
Charm: Principle of Motion
Points spent on Attributes: 10. Points spent on Abilities: 4. Points spent on Virtues: 3. Points spent on Charms: 3

Similarly, a Blood Ape would be between Familiar 2 and Familiar 3. An immortal blood ape. For a Lunar, it would be between Familiar 1 and Familiar 2.(Attributes 8.5, Abilities 9.5, Charms 12, Virtues 1.5, Willpower 2, Essence 4)

I think the system needs some tweaking. (Oh, also, Willpower usually costs less than Virtues, because it defaults to the sum of the two highest virtues anything has.) - FrivYeti

You forgot to price the raising to Essence to make it a god. It must be at least Essence 2 to learn Charms. But you're right, I probably do need to re-check the values. I haven't tried building various critters. A blood ape should be about Familiar 3. I'd be happy to take suggestions on the point spreads. I changed Virtues to cost 1 point, but I still think WP should cost 2. It's more useful then Virtues are, directly.

Interesting concept. But I don't know if I dig multiple familiars for lunars. And I disagree, heartsblood and renoun are both very useful, if anything familiar is their only 'useless' background. ~StarHawk

Heartsblood can be gained in play for nothing at all in vast numbers. And renown is useful ONLY in Silver Pact games and then it's not any different from Status. - Telgar

You should make a henchmen background with points. That would be awesome. ~StarHawk

Eh. Since there's a system for making human-type characters, I don't think we need one. - Telgar