Revision as of 08:08, 5 April 2010

House Rules

This is where I'm collecting my gaming group's associated house rules for ease of use and reference.

Anima Powers

The Twilight Anima ability is, as written, both exceptionally narrow and excessively powerful within that narrow focus. It is the only Solar anima to have just one effect, rather than two. To correct this, the following houserules are considered to be in effect:

• The damage reducing portion of the anima now subtracts post-soak damage dice equal to the Exalt's Essence, rather than Health Levels.
  
• The members of the Twilight Caste have an innate understanding of the natural flow of Essence through Creation. In extremity, they have the ability to harness the ambient Essence of the world around them through sheer force of will. By spending a point of Willpower as a reflexive action, the Twilight may roll dice equal to his Permanent Essence rating and regain two motes of Essence for every success.

The Zenith Anima is, as written, quite unclear - a strict reading makes it useless, a liberal one might potentially make it broken. In our games it adds Essence to soak, minimum attack dice, and raw damage against creatures of darkness. It does not increase minimum damage dice.

Abilities

Craft

Though Second Edition greatly reduced the number of Craft abilities extant in the game by folding all mundane Craft skills into the five elementally-aligned disciplines, the necessity of investing in a single Ability many times in order to achieve breadth is internally inconsistent with all other Abilities within the system. If someone with a Ride skill can pilot a hanglider or a First Age flying machine as easily as they can ride a horse without needing to repurchase dots in Ride, why does a stonemason have to buy his Craft ability all the way up from nothing to learn how to fire pottery? It is less a representation of difficulty and more an XP sink directed at players who wish to pursue this aspect of the game. It gets worse when you look at the exotic Craft abilities offered in Wonders of the Lost Age, Magitech and Genesis, which not only require a player to invest in the Crafts ability four times over but are also capped by both Lore and Occult. Even the simplest repairs for magitechnical items require a Lore of 3. Nevermind that I can master Solar Circle Sorcery without even being literate.

The pervasive assumption that appears to underly and inform all of the Crafting rules in WotLA is that players should not be making or repairing these things at all; and that attempting to achieve even minimal capacity to do so should be painful rather than challenging. Challenge comes from in-play obstacles that must be overcome, such as locating the facilities needed to create the wonder and acquiring the raw materials or blueprints to do so. Challenge should be fun. There is no challenge or fun associated with sinking excessive amounts of XP into something that will take place, most often, off-screen or during downtime. In fact, it's about the farthest thing from fun to see the other players giggling over their new Combos and talking excitedly about achieving Essence 4 while you pour even more XP into your fourth Craft ability in order to finally be able to create that Essence cannon. Which you won't be using, incidentally, because you spent all your XP making it rather than learning how to use it. And when the other players wonder what that grinding sound is when you hand your finished invention over to the Circle's grinning Dawn Caste, you can tell them that it's the sound of the Craft system breaking into a million pieces.

So there are two problems here: first, the subdivisions of Craft require a player to reinvest many times over into the ability in order to achieve a breadth of expertise that is already assumed to exist for all other abilities. This is inconsistent and unfair, and should be done away with.

House Rule: Each point purchased in the Craft ability allows the player to choose another Craft subdivision in which the character is versed. It parallels Linguistics in this fashion.

The second problem is that for the more advanced applications of the Craft ability, it is dependent on and limited by other abilities (namely Lore and Occult). While other abilities may be similarly limited in certain circumstances, such as by War or Ride, Craft is the only ability that completely bars a player from performing certain activities associated with it in ALL circumstances unless they have invested in two other abilities as well. This seems overly restrictive, as I've already said, but there does need to be some minimum requirements to maintain the sense of wonder that such things are supposed to evoke.

House Rule: In order to select Craft (Magitech) or Craft (Genesis), the character must first have minimum Lore of 3 and Occult of 3. However, neither ability acts as a cap on how high either Craft can be raised or on how many dice are rolled. Craft (Magitech) additionally requires that the character have previously chosen both Craft (Fire) and Craft (Air) as subdivisions. Similarly, Craft (Genesis) requires that the character be skilled in Craft (Wood) and Craft (Water).

Last a word on repairing magitechnical artifacts that require maintainance.

House Rule: Lore and Occult repair minimums are ignored. Craft (Magitech) is the ability used to perform all maintainance.

Combos

I use a modification of the Combo construction rules found in Exalted 2E. Characters are assumed to always be striving to master their signature techniques, and so, Combos do not remain static - they are allowed to grow and evolve as a PC continues to develop his own unique moves, whether they be a powerful Martial Arts strike or the ability to Craft Artifacts in weeks instead of years. To reflect this, players are allowed to add a Charm to an existing Combo. Doing so costs experience points equal to the minimum Ability requirement of the Charm to be added, with an equal training time (measured in days). Players are also allowed to remove Charms from existing Combos; doing so costs no experience, but they are not compensated for the loss.

These changes represent a true evolution of the technique - if a player wishes to have multiple variations on a single Combo, s/he must develop multiple versions of the Combo and purchase them seperately.

Charm Changes

General

Several charms add or subtract successes from Join Battle rolls: Striking Cobra Technique, Lightning Draw Stance, and Distracting Finger Gesture Attack leap to mind, among others. All such Charms are houseruled to add or subtract dice from a person's Join Battle pool rather than successes.

Individual Charms

Second Edition fixed 90% of the problems I had with First Edition's Charm trees. There are still a few that could use tweaking, though.

Sorcery Charms: Upon learning the Terrestrial, Celestial, or Solar Circle Sorcery Charm(s), the character also learns the corresponding Countermagic spell.
Short reasoning: XP spent should give you something. XP spent on Sorcery Charms, as written, does nothing except suck away XP. Bundling in the Countermagic eliminates that and seems within reason.

Durability of Oak Meditation: This Charm now grants Hardness equal to (Exalt's Essence x4). Now costs 2m instead of 3m.
The ability to gain 8 Hardness that doesn't stack with armor might be remotely useful at the very beginning of a Solars game...but not by much. Considering that as written this Charm costs the same as Seven Shadow Evasion and is completely useless against even soldier Extras (Str 3 + chopping sword + 1 attack success = minimum raw damage of 9, thx!) I think it's safe to say that it is utterly broken. Cutting the cost and making the effect scale with Essence allows it to at least retain mote-efficiency as a possible argument in favor of using it over another defensive Charm.

Iron Skin Concentration: Now costs 3m instead of 2m.
Given the respective power of these two Charms, I'm almost certain their costs were inadvertently switched. Even if they weren't, there's no way DoOM should be cheaper than ISC. No way.

One Weapon, Two Blows: Change to allow the Exalt in question to spend up to her Essence in motes to power this Charm. Each mote spent on the Charm improves the Accuracy and Rate of the weapon by 1 until her DV next refreshes.
As printed, OWTB is too much of a speedbump Charm. Allowing it to scale does not, I think, reduce in any way the utility of the Extra Action Charms in the Melee tree, but it does restore some honest-to-goodness power to this one. The fact that it offers nothing in the way of defensive ability and is limited to Essence in dice also preserves the sanctity of the First Excellency, as well.

Iron Raptor Technique: The "unblockable" quality of the Sandstorm Wind Attack variation can only be parried by Charms that explicitly allow the character to parry unparryable attacks. Stunts are at ST discretion but should have to meet similarly stringent requirements.
This is more a clarification of interpretation than a houserule. Going from a strict reading of the clause written in the 2e Core, even just sketching out a sentence to describe your mundane parry would be enough to render the SSWA variation of this Charm utterly worthless, as would feeding a single mote into an Excellency or using Dipping Swallow or some such. This in spite of the fact that it costs 4m and is the thematic sibling to Cascade of Cutting Terror. That's bogus. The Charm needs some punch, and protecting it's ability to ignore PDV does that.

Tiger Warrior Training Technique: This Charm now only requires that the character know any one War Excellency.
Reasoning behind this change covered in the Comments section at the bottom of this page.

Memory-Reweaving Discipline: This Charm no longer requires Phantom-Conjuring Performance as a prerequisite.
I have a problem with requiring a player to purchase a Charm that, by the rules, has NO mechanical effect and only offers window-dressing.

Armored Scout's Invigoration: This Charm no longer has any prerequisites.
There's no reason for something this simple to have so many prereqs.

Spirit Strengthens the Skin: This Charm is now Permanent in duration and has the following effects: it allows the Solar to soak Lethal damage with his full Stamina, and it allows him to reflexively spend up to his Resistance score in motes to reduce the raw damage of an attack against him by a like number of dice. The second effect does not count as a Charm use.
The mote-efficiency on this Charm as written is absolutely horrid, especially when at the same tier you have the option of buying the incredibly efficient Iron Skin Concentration. By comparison, SSTS is a complete dud. Considering that they are both requirements for Adamant Skin, requiring anyone who wants that Charm to purchase both of these, it makes a lot more sense to make them complementary Charms rather than redundant ones. I also like the idea of Solars having some parallel to the functionality that DBs get with Five Dragon Fortitude.

Friendship With Animals Approach: This Charm no longer requires Majestic Radiant Presence as a prerequisite.
Even the writer said afterwards that it was a typo and makes no sense.

Harmonious Academic Methodology: This Charm now only requires that the character know any one Lore Excellency.
Two Excellencies is redundant. Yes, you might have use for it, but in terms of prereqs one should be sufficient.

Wyld-Shaping Technique: This Charm now only requires that the character know any one Lore Excellency.
As with HAM above.

Crack-Mending Technique: This Charm now lowers the amount of time required to perform any Craft action by a factor of (Essence x 3).
Dividing the acceleration clause between this Charm and Craftsman Needs No Tools makes no sense. Really, it makes far more sense to have a Charm that speeds up the crafting process and another Charm that removes the need for tools, so that's what I've done here.

Craftsman Needs No Tools: This Charm now only negates all penalties for not having access to appropriate tools; it does not lower the time required to perform any Craft action. It has no Willpower cost.
As above.

Ebon Shadow Form: This Charm now adds Martial Arts in dice to the Exalt's Join Battle Pool as well as adding Essence in dice to all Stealth rolls while the Form is active. It no longer improves the Exalt's DV.
This is a fairly major change due to the removal of the DV bonus. Reasons for this change are discussed here: Teflonshugenja/HouseRules/ESFHouserule.

Elusive Flicker Evasion: This Charm now increases the Martial Artist's Dodge DV by her Permanent Essence until her DV next refreshes.
Previously was overcosted. This also offers some of the combat evasion once granted by Ebon Shadow Form, allowing the Style to retain the capacity for high avoidance without overpowering the Form.

Mass Combat

The following modifications to Second Edition Mass Combat rules apply:

Subalterns

In our games, complementary units are assumed to include a command structure organized around the officer structure. A player or NPC who enters battle at the head of a unit of 500 men usually does not do so without other skilled officers to help him maintain unit cohesion, relay orders, and allow the unit to execute complex maneuvers. In short, units above Magnitude 2 generally do not behave as a single block of men led by one charismatic leader; rather, they are assumed to operate as multiple complementary units working in tandem. Since micromanaging large numbers of small units quickly becomes tedious and slows the game down, Second Edition rules allow players and Storytellers to abstract these "groups of groups" into high-Magnitude units, which more appropriately resemble formations of units coordinating under a pyramidal command structure.

But there is a problem. Due to the way the Mass Combat rules are written, high-Magnitude units tend to be both exceptionally prone to Rout and extrordinarily unwieldy - even more so than one would think. As a result, while abstractions of this sort work in theory, they tend to fail in practice since the mechanics are so unforgiving to high-Mag units.

Subalterns are an attempt to mitigate this problem. Thematically, Subalterns are the skilled unit commanders who fall under the umbrella of a higher-ranking officer in the command structure. When the Merge Units action occurs in battle, the commander of the unit subsumed does not suddenly disappear into the rank-and-file; instead, he acknowledges the chain of command and agrees to accept orders from his superior, who becomes the Formation Commander of the newly-enlarged group of soldiers. Both units continue to exist, but now they operate in tandem rather than independent of each other. While functioning thusly, the Formation Commander is in control of the Formation, and the commanders of other units in the Formation act as Subalterns.

Mechanically, Formations behave exactly as normal complementary units. Subalterns behave as Relays, but with additional benefits. Each Subaltern reduces the effective Magnitude of the Formation by 1 for the purposes of Maneuvers (such as Change Order, Charge, or Rally - in short, any roll in which the modifier of (Magnitude - Drill) is applied) and Rout.

A Formation may support one Subaltern for every three full Magnitudes it possesses. Subalterns count against the number of special characters that a unit can support (equal to twice it's Magnitude). In order to qualify to act as a Subaltern, a character must possess a combined (Wits + War) rating at least equal to the Magnitude of the Formation. As such, individuals competent to manage smaller units may be insufficiently skilled to handle the complexities of large Formations. Similarly, Formations composed of many different units only benefit from the efforts of the maximum number of Subalterns the Formation can support; the remaining commanders are assumed to be doing their part, but do not offer any mechanical benefits.

Example:

Rain Caronnen is the general of the assembled army of Kolan at the Battle of the Shattered Gates. He is currently on the field at the head of a 500-man unit of infantry (Magnitude 5). Seeing the enemy army massing in the center, he calls to two of his subordinate unit commanders on the field: Relia Bloodwind, leading a unit of 200 infantry (Magnitude 4) and Den Wo Ping, leading a unit of 120 infantry (Magnitude 3). Both are currently acting as independent commanders on the field. Rain, as the general, orders them to rally to his banner, leading all three in a Merge Units action. Relia and Ping agree to the order (technically they don't have to, but as it would be insubordination to refuse they choose not to). Each unit makes the required rolls and the action is successful. The new unit is a Formation consisting of all three commanders' own troops, but now instead of acting independently Relia and Ping take their cues from Rain and act to support his maneuvers. The new unit is Magnitude 6. Rain is the Formation Commander. Relia and Ping both assume roles as Subalterns, allowing Rain to command the Magnitude 6 unit as though it was only Magnitude 4 for the purposes of maneuvering and Rout. As the Formation is Magnitude 6, it can only support two Subalterns, so even if another qualified unit commander were available Rain would be unable to take advantage of him/her without first swelling his ranks to Magnitude 9.

It is worth noting that in the above example, prior to the merge action all three unit commanders could have a Subaltern of their own, indicating that they are already part of a Formation. In this case, assume that all Subalterns operating at any tier but the highest simply behave as Relays. They are still doing their job - the smaller units that make up the larger Formation don't suddenly dissolve into an indistinguishable mass. But as their efforts are focused on maintaining cohesion at a lower scale than the larger Formation is now operating at, only Subalterns to the Formation Commander offer special benefits.

Inertia

While the Second Edition Mass Combat rules offer plenty of exciting opportunity to engage in tactical warfare, the strategic element is conspicuously absent. While much of this can be represented by having the players themselves actually plan their own battles, the lack of a mechanical representation of this is a problem for all the same reasons that not having a system for Social Combat was a problem in 1st Edition: players should not be limited in their character concepts to things they are good at IRL, and the importance of character statistics in maintaining game balance requires that IC skill be represented by dots on the character sheet - dots that have to be used in order to be meaningful. Inertia is an attempt to represent the impact of strategic planning on the course of a battle.

When two armies meet, each must declare their Strategic Commander. Note that this need not be the same person who actually leads that army's forces on the field. At the beginning of a battle, the Strategic Commanders of either side make an opposed (Intelligence + War) roll. Up to three allied generals who are allowed to participate in the planning may partially assist the Strategic Commander in this roll, adding one die each to the Strategic Commander's dice pool. If an army is following a battle strategy prepared in advance, rather than one developed at the beginning of the battle, that army's Strategic Commander subtracts two successes from his roll to represent changing battlefield conditions that s/he was unable to take into account beforehand.

The Strategic Commander who gets more successes may add his threshold as bonus dice to all attacks and 1/2 his threshold to the DV (rounded down) of all Unit Commanders in his army for the duration of the battle. No Unit Commander can benefit from a higher Inertia bonus than 1/2 his War rating (rounded up).

During the course of the battle, opposing Unit Commanders have the option to take the Overcome Inertia action (Speed 7, DV -3). The Unit Commander makes a (Wits + War) roll at a difficulty equal to the opposing Strategic Commander's War rating. Every success reduces the opposing army's Inertia by 1. Note that Inertia cannot actually be gained during battle, as most plans seldom survive past the first few moments of an engagement.

Example:

The massed armies of the Empire of Kolan and the forces of the Crimson Weaver of Subtle Venoms face each other over a large valley. The army of Kolan announces that the Terrestrial savant Kestrel Doreneal will be its Strategic Commander, while the Weaver's army announces that it will be using a plan developed by the ancient spectral general Fist of War (who is not present). Both sides have engaged in strategic deliberation with allied generals in planning for this battle and thus will receive +3 dice on their Inertia rolls (the most they can hope for).

Kestrel is present at the battle and has an Intelligence of 5 and a War of 5 with a 3-dot specialty in "Strategy", and adds three dice for the assistance of her generals. She also declares that she will be purchasing eight additional dice with the First War Excellency, for a total of 24 dice. She rolls and receives a statistically average 12 successes, indicating a brilliant and revolutionary battle plan.

Fist of War is not present at the battle, instead having planned his army's strategy ahead of time. He has an Intelligence of 4 and a War of 6 with a 2-dot specialty in "Classical Warfare". The ST decides that the specialty applies as his plan is conventional and not particularly daring. He also benefits from three dice for the assistance of his generals, and also has the aid of an ancient artifact battle-map that adds four dice to his planning roll, for a total dice pool of 19. He rolls well and also receives 12 successes, but loses two of them for planning in absentia. The ST rules that a freak thunderstorm the night before the battle has collapsed a hillside that Fist of War had deemed critical to his plan. If he was present he would be able to adjust the plan to take this into account. As it is, the Weaver's unit commanders are forced to choose whether to discard the plan and attempt to make a new one on the spot (and risk a worse roll), or to stick to the agreed-upon strategy and make do as best they can. They opt for the latter.

Kestrel wins the Inertia roll by two successes. The Kolan army will enjoy a two-dice bonus to their attack rolls and a 1-point bonus to their Defense Values. The Weaver's forces will have to work hard during the battle to overcome the advantage their opponents have.

Comments

Just one question. I notice that Tiger-Warrior Training Technique is now much more reachable by more characters. What's the intended purpose of this? To increase the number of soldiers, and add a more militaristic feel? Or some other reason? -- GreenLantern

Not necessarily either, however I did think that the prerequisites were excessive (as printed, TWTT required no fewer than five other Charms, which puts it higher in the War tree than almost any other Solar Charm in 2nd Edition). Compare that to the Lore equivalent, Harmonious Academic Methodology, which as printed required only two other Charms, both Lore Excellencies (a redundancy I'm also doing away with).

The philosophy behind the change is twofold: one, Charm trees in 2nd Edition tend to be more "shallow", i.e. they emphasize breadth over depth. I like this and prefer it to forcing characters to invest heavily in Charm trees that are only tangentially related to their real goal. One can argue that Heroism-Encouraging Presence is more than "tangentially" related to TWTT, but aside from both being War Charms that isn't really true. HEP and it's prereq Charms are all about leading men in battle, while TWTT is about training them beforehand. They're both essential aspects of waging war, but that's really all they share in common. It's different enough in my opinion to merit seperating the two branches. The second reason applies to both the War and Lore training Charms: Solars are meant to be leaders of men, and I dislike putting the Charms that allow them to train their loyal followers so far out of reach. The Charm's inherent requirements (Ability 4, Essence 3), coupled with an Excellency, are plenty of justification for me. It's not like every Tom, Dick and Jane Solar is going to be getting it now - it's powerful, but only at what it does: train soldiers. If you're not training soldiers, there's no reason to get it. Dawn Castes? They should be all over it. Everyone else? Well, maybe the occasional Zenith, but most other characters won't give two bits how easy it is to get to, since they'll never want it anyway.

It's also worth noting that all TWTT does is train soldiers - rapidly and effectively, yes, but that's it. I've noticed that many people seem to believe that all it takes is to buy the Charm and then players start pulling armies out of thin air. Obviously, that's not the case. You still need the men in the first place, and then you need the time, money, infrastructure, et al to maintain your troops, feed them, clothe them, arm them, give them commanding officers, etc. None of which this Charm helps with. So while it's quite good at making farmers into badasses, it's not the "I Win" button many seem to make it out to be. That being the case, why put it so far out of reach?

So I suppose I would answer your question "what is the intended purpose" of making these Charms more accessible to players with my own - what was the intended purpose of making them so hard to get to in the first place? -- teflonshugenja