Latest revision as of 18:52, 27 January 2010

Amaranth

Amaranth, (one that does not whither), is an attempt to create a complete unified rules that
meet what I want in my Exalted game and pull together various attempts I and many other, better
writers have done before. Heavy draws for influence come from One Roll Exalted by Democritus
and A Fallen Age by Bazzalisk. I have received no permission from either of them to use their ideas
let alone Exalted or the ORE system. So this isn't really meant to be read but to be for my personal
use only, so if you found it CONGRATULATIONS!, please stop to tell me what you think.

Setting

A word on setting, while the normal Exalted setting would work fine with any such Exalted rules,
I find myself drawn to tweak the setting when I am so vastly changing the rules. The new setting
is basically adapted the Earthdawn Setting to match Exalted.

The Setting for Amaranth

System Terms

Action: An action is what the character hopes to achieve in a turn through their efforts and dice
rolls. A multiple action would be attempting two thing in one turn, if multiple sets are achieved.
Charm: A generic name for any effect for which Excellency Dice can be paid to provide.
Excellency Dice (or XD): the Chosen achieve power by super-charging an ability or stat, turning
the dot the would provide a normal die into one that provides an Excellency Die, which provide many effects.
Height: Describes the number showing on the die, a larger number is said to be higher.
Potency: Used to describe how strong an XD is in certain ways. Most Types of Exalted have different Potency.
Reflexive: A reflexive charm is one that can be chosen and paid for at any time, usually right after
the roll.
Set: A set is multiple dice that show the same number and provides and describes a success in ORE.
Simple: A Simple charm is one that requires its own action and roll to have its effect.
Supplemental: A supplemental charm is one that requires its XD to be spent right before the action
it is effecting.
Width: Describes the amount of dice that show the same number in a set.

Mechanics

This system uses the ORE resolution mechanic, specifically the version found in Reign, although I add the Fluid Combat supplement

Here is a description pulled from the Wikipedia entry, the Nemesis Rule set is available online for free and can help get you started.

The O.R.E. system uses a dice pool of d10s equal to the character's Stat and Skill similar to that used by Storyteller system, but the method to determine success
is different. In the O.R.E. system, success is determined by die result matches, such as a pair of 8s. The Width of a roll, the number of matching dice, determines
the speed (and damage, if in combat) of a roll, while the Height of a roll, the face up result on the matched dice, determines how successful an action was and
location of a hit in combat. Shorthand notation for writing results is Width x Height, so a pair of 8s would be written 2x8 and three 2s would be written, 3x2.

Exalted gain access to the ability to channel Essence into their stats or skills, usually skills, improving a normal die into what are called Excellency Dice.
Excellency Dice enable a variety of dice manipulating capabilities, depending on the type of Chosen. The also enable the weirder powers that Exalted can
call on.

Their are two ways to use an Excellency Die. They may be "Spent," which means that it is used for a purpose and is not available for another purpose in that
round, but next round will be available for the same or another purpose. Dice may also be committed which means they are providing an ongoing effect and
will not be available to be spent or committed until the effect ends. Every exalt type have differences in Dice use, especially in how commitment works.
Excellency Dice are frequently described as having a power level, this is a number that changes with Exalt types and used to determine some effects.

For an in depth look at what you can do with Excellency Dice, click here

Statistics

Amaranth uses bog standard Stats from Reign. Body, Coordination, Command, Charm, Sense, and Knowledge. As with Reign, each purchase of a die in a Stat is 5
experience points, or using the alternative Experience rules requires 3 times current dice plus 1 checks to advance.

Skills

Skills are a little trickier as both Reign and Exalted have their own sets of skills. As far as I can tell which set you use is irrelevant to Amaranth. To add to the horrible
list of alternative skills sets here is my own take. I have purposefully tried to keep the number per statistic even. This simplifies character creation later, but may be
less realistic or even less fun. Please let me know if you try it out.

Body: Athletics, Fight, Resistance
Coordination: Grace, Ranged, Stealth
Command: Leadership, Organization, Integrity
Charm: Prayer, Persuasion, Oratory
Knowledge: Lore, Medicine, Craft
Sense: Awareness, Insight, Voyaging

These skills may be used with other Stats but will almost always default to the assigned statistic.

As mentioned, Reign or Exalted skill sets should be usable if you wish without using this crazyness.

Skills cost 1 experience point each or a number of experience checks equal to new dice amount.

Special Dice

Both the normal heroes and the Chosen can still purchase Expert and Master dice. Exalts rarely bother as their Excellency dice usually do better. Also a
character may not have both a Expert, Master, or Excellency Dice. An Exalt may upgrade a normal or Expert die to Excellency Die by spending 5 experience.
A Master dice may be upgraded for only one experience point.

Favored

A chosen may only have one excellency dice in each skill or stat except the ones they favor. A favored Skill may have potentially all of the dice converted to
Excellency. So part of the measure of an Exalts power is how many skills they favor. A Dragonblooded may only have one Favored skill, a Celestial Exalted
will tend to favor roughly half the skills or statistics they can potentially take, hence their great power. Spirit being favor and channel XD through their virtues.

Advantages

Artifacts: Are rated 1-10 Advantages. Each artifact is a normal object, usually but not necessarily one that can perform the non-magic version of the artifacts
action. To activate the magic the user must attune the artifact which requires either a rolled set right that beats a difficulty equal to Artifacts rating right before
the rolled set that uses the magic, or requires an XD with potency equal to the Artifacts rating to be spent. A user can use a multiple action to attune and
then use an artifact in one round. For most the roll to attune is the same as the roll to use the artifact. Some artifacts that work over time may require the
Amaranth be either concentrating on it or commit the appropriate XD to keep it functioning.

Manses: Is treated as a 1-10 advantage. In effect it is a 1-5 background describing the Manse, as a magical secret Base, and a second 1-5 background
representing the Hearthstones power. If you have one without the other it means you either have loaned, or been loaned, the hearthstone. A Hearthstone,
in addition to a minor magical power, such as seeing in the dark, grants the holder a one point boost to XD Potency a number of times per scene equal to
the rating. A Manse grants its rating as a potency bonus to the first XD spent in a given round while in the Manse. The Manse rating also controls how
useful the manse is in other ways, whether magical effects, useful servants, good locations, or being defensible.

Virtues