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Rebalancing Alchemicals

The following rules are designed to reduce the Alchemicals to an overall Terrestrial level of power. If such changes are made, the total number of Alchemicals in Autochthon should be increased by double or triple to reflect their reduced power.

1) Alchemicals lose the anima ability to boost Attributes, and the Transitory Attribute ability to improve that power.

2) Alchemicals favour only two of their three Caste Attributes and have two Favoured Attributes, instead of three and three. They may choose to have one of their Favoured Attributes be their third Caste Attribute.

3) Alchemicals no longer differentiate between "Charms" and "Charm slots". While they can still install or uninstall Charms at Vats, every Charm must be installed or uninstalled seperately.

4) All Caste or Favoured Charms cost 10 experience, and other Charms cost 12. Martial Arts Charms always cost 12 experience. God-Machine Weaving Protocols cost 15 experience. Essence costs Current Rating x10.

5) Alchemicals must install all prerequisites to any Charm they choose to install.

6) Installing submodules increases a Charm's installation cost. Every 12 XP worth of submodules (rounding up) increases installation costs of that Charm by 1. An Alchemical may choose not to install her submodules when she is in the Vats.

7) Peripheral Essence pool is reduced to [Essence x5 + Willpowerx2 + Two Highest Virtues + extra motes]. The Auxiliary Essence Storage Unit Charm provides only 8 motes per purchase.

8) God-Machine Protocols require Alchemicals to properly multifunction. In order to activate any God-Machine Protocol, an Alchemical must have either one assistant with God-Machine Weaving Engine installed, or two assistants with the Man-Machine Weaving Engine installed. They must spend Willpower to activate their Weaving Engine, and spend two actions stabilizing the God-Machine Weaver's weaving actions for it to function.

9) Alchemicals with the Perfected Lotus Matrix learn Martial Arts as though they were Dragon-Blooded. Learning new Martial Arts Charms does not increase the installation cost of the Perfected Lotus Matrix.

10) Alchemicals begin with an 8 / 6 / 4 split between Physical, Social, and Mental Attributes, and then add one dot to a single Caste or Favoured Attribute, as Lunars. All Caste and Favoured Attributes must be ranked at 3 before this bonus dot is applied.

Comments

Cross-posted this here and at the White Wolf forums. Do you think this is enough to reduce Alchemicals to Terrestrial-level? Too much? Comments are most appreciated.

Why would you want to lower the alchemicals to terresterial level? ~ haku

Mainly to emphasize the "Locust" aspect of the Locust Crusade. I like the image of ten thousand Alchemicals striding across Creation, fighting in hordes to oppose select champions of the Exalted. - FrivYeti

I agree with haku's question, but in the realm of being helpful, I will give you some feedback. 1)Seems reasonable.

2)Once again, seems reasonable. The major effect will be in cutting down which charms they pay favored vs. unfavored costs for.

3)This confuses me. What it sounds like you're saying is that Alchemicals just buy charms now. They can no longer possess more charms than they can conceivably use as a function of slots. I don't really see what this accomplishes.

Not quite. Alchemicals can still remove their Charms in a Vat. For example, an Essence 3 Alchemical might own 20 Charms, and equip only 10 of them, leaving the other 10 sitting on a shelf. With Installation costs, this is a critical aspect of Alchemical versatility.

4)Same as Terrestrial costs, yeah? Sounds good.

5)This is already the case. Did you perhaps mean something else?

As it stands, Alchemicals must PURCHASE all prerequisites, but do not actually have to have them equipped; any prerequisites can sit on the shelf most of the time, leaving them clear to only equip their strongest Charms.

6)This is incredibly crippling. As alchemicals are the only exalt type with a cap on the amount of charms they can use, sub-modules allowed for some measure of flexibility and usefulness in the charms they did have. By increasing the installation cost, you are effectively reducing the total number of charms an alchemical can install. If I had to choose between a moderately jacked up essence blaster or two more charms, I'd take the two charms every time.

That is a valid point - however, the individual Charms of the Alchemicals are significantly stronger than individual Terrestrial Charms - they are, in fact, Solar-level for the most part. What it actually means is that, in generally, two submodules are equal to a single Charm for installation. If it's a 2-mote Charm, you're looking at 4 submodules.

7)This is also incredibly crippling. Alchemicals have little enough essence as it is. By lowering personal essence you reduce the number of charms an Alchemical can use. And with all of their personal essence tied into charms and less periphal essence on top of that, you affect what artifacts an alchemical can take. You're basically forcing them to choose between gear and charms.

Hmm... not a bad point, but I don't want Alchemical pools to be stronger than Celestial Exalt pools. Besides, Dragon-Bloods already have to choose between Artifacts and Essence pools. I may keep the Personal pools intact, and only affect Peripheral.

8)Sure.

9)Also fine.

10) Alchemicals, like lunars, rely on their attributes to get good pools due to the lack of favored abilities and therefore an increased cost to raise said abilities. Taking away that extra attribute point seems unneccessary.

Yet Lunars do fine with only four Attributes favoured. I don't think Alchemicals really need six to be fully effective. I may give them all Caste plus two Favoured, though. Have to think about it. - FrivYeti

Overall: I have a PC who plays an alchemical in a mixed SolarFrivYeti/ReducingAlchemicals/Abyssal circle. I think you're underestimating just how much essence gets tied up in charms and gear. Between his charms, a beam klaive, artifact armor, and an artifact ring, he has enough essence committed to leave him with 36 free motes of essence to use on charm activation, 31 if he has to turn his beam klaive on in a fight. Based on his experiences playing an Alchemical out of the book, these changes actually make them worse off then Terrestrials. Terrestrials will have more charms, higher die adder caps, probably higher die pools, more essence and or better gear, and the ability to freely use reflexive charms. Also, Terrestrial's don't die instantly if they drop past incap. Alchemicals have better anima powers, some extra health levels for free, and their charms are slightly more powerful in certain areas. As they stand, I'd say they are probably lower than Sidereals on the power scale and just above DBs but not by much. Something else to take into consideration is character growth. Alchemical power levels don't scale up as fast due to the cap on the number of charms they can use and your proposed changes lower that cap. If you are going to do this, I would advise not using points 6,7,and 10. -Ambisinisterwho hopes he's making sense and is willing to elaborate if you feel like chatting about it on monday

I can see the point. I've felt that the raw power of Alchemical Charms, which are really Solar-level in scope, mean that they don't need as many Charms to be effective compared to Terrestrial. Combined with the incredible versatility of arrays, which allow Alchemicals to freely Combo everything they own at lower installation costs, I think they'd still be okay. Happy to discuss, though. - FrivYeti

I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say Alchemical Charms are Solar level in scope; I'm sure there are some examples, but I don't think the vast majority would be. My understanding of the varying levels of Exalted is:

• Whatever Solars do, they are the best at it
• Lunars adapt themselves to suit their situation
• Sidereals adapt the situation to suit their own needs
• Terrestrials work as a well oiled machine to overcome their individual weakness
• Alchemicals are the Jack-of-all-Trades, capable of everything but master of nothing. In a similar vein to Lunars, they adapt themselves to situations they think might arise

Now, I have no problems with nerfing them a bit, as, having had an Alchemical ally in a mixed circle once I understand that they can be too powerful simply because they can do anything. Of your ten changes, the only two I really oppose are 6 and 7; 7 because, like Ambisiniser said, the Alchems really need their personal essence, and 6 because the schtick of Alchemicals is their versatility, and increasing charm cost because of submodules seems to impinge on their schtick. It would be like removing all the Solar perfect defence charms, or at least reducing them in power. --DarkPhoenix

That is true - however, if I were planning on reducing Solars to Terrestrial level Exalts (and boy, would that take a lot of work), I would have to drastically reduce the power of their perfect effects. Not reduce them to the power of Terrestrial perfects, since Solars are still better at "just doing it", but stick a WP cost onto all the perfect defenses in addition to keeping the Flaws of Invunerability. This idea wouldn't be for most systems; in general, I have no opposition to Celestial-level Exalts. It's just part of a project I'm working on. ;) - FrivYeti

I would also agree that Alchie charms are not at all "Solar Level". They're easily 1E Lunar level, but not even Sidereal level, really. Sure, they can often do a lot, but when you get down to it, there are so many basic things that Alchie charms don't do, especially in the non-combat side of things. The second you hit Social+Mental actions, Alchies really suffer - there's just not a lot you can work with in the book. Even combat-wise, because they're so tied up in essence and gear, you really have a lot of issues keeping them fueled. Their charms that are multifunction, offering things like "Either a dodge OR a parry" mean you pick one, and only one, per installation - you can't switch up mid-round at all. Instead, it takes weeks of retreat time to simply switch common modes of defense. I'm just standing for the poor Alchies, who personally, already suffer a lot. -- GreenLantern

Here, I disagree. While there aren't a ton of social Charms LISTED for the Alchemicals, the ones they have are devastating. Alchies definately outbeat 1e Lunars in every respect. Tying peripheral motes up in gear is a design choice that they might take, not a requirement, and it makes them that much more dangerous if they do it right. Alchemicals are weaker than Solars at raw perfection, and their installation costs definately keep them on the weak end of the Celestial scale, but they are very firmly IN the Celestial scale. - FrivYeti

Summary: After reading over responses, I am going to significantly tone down mote pool reduction on the Alchemicals, and give them back their 9 6 4 split. I'm keeping the submodule rules as-is, though, at the very least until I build some of these "terrestralchies" and see what they look like. I may say that having submodules equipped creates a flat 1-mote installation increase, rather than having it continue to scale. - FrivYeti