Difference between revisions of "SpiritBuildingGuidelines"

Revision as of 09:05, 3 April 2010

This here's an area dedicated for the creation of gods, elementals, and demons. There're no hard and fast rules to building the spirits of Creation and beyond, and they must be eyeballed against spirits in the texts. What I foresee is a listing of the parameters of abilities for spirits, giving STs an idea of power level when crafting original spirits in First Edition.

Basically, for each Essence level, canon spirit stats are counted up and averaged. The spirit names used in the calculation should be cited, and the sample of numbers kept in the respective order. This will allow other spirits to be added in the future from other books and recalculated, as I'm just concentrating on the core and GoD for right now. Numbers can then be spread out however the ST wishes in order to fit his vision of a spirit. Keep an eye out for patterns in Charms and stuff and make special notes if there is a special consideration.

There's a lot of Essence levels to cover, so I hope all Wikizens lend a hand if they're into autistic tallying and mathing.

This information is not balanced enough to make spirit PCs. Spirits tend to be too focused on a concept to be very versatile, and their power levels can fluxuate wildly even within their Essence level. STs are strongly advised to put tight controls on players who want to make PCs or even Allies with this stuff. For a more flexible system to make spirits into PCs, check out the offsite Sustainers of the Realm

Hellz yes. I want to build a First Edition...

• /God
• /Elemental
• /Demon

Notes

--No rating can exceed 5 unless specifically noted under an Essence category.
--Attribute dots are pooled, without a need for a primary/secondary/tertiary hierarchy. This reflects a spirit's customization to their purpose.
--Decimals in averages are rounded to the nearest solid number. That's called an 'integer,' right?
--Health Levels include the full range of 0,-1,-2,-4,and Incap. Very roughly, there are double -1 and -2 levels to -0 or -4 levels.
--Every trait starts at 0, and dots are used to fill them from there. Attributes at zero level are completely acceptable. Virtues, however, must have at least 1 dot, or the spirit cannot anchor itself to existence (or something like that).
--Essence pool is calculated by (Essence x 10) + (Willpower x 3) + (Sum of Virtues x 2). I forgot about this when I started, thus there might be entries for this. However, as its derived, its really not important to waste any more time on future entries.

Comments

One question - you provide attributes as a max total of points. Is this like the character creation method, where you get 1 in everything, plus, say, 18 points (8,6,4) or is it more of an absolute thing, where you get 27 points to distribute. That 9 points is as yet up in the air, and significantly changes how the points are allocated. -- GreenLantern, looking for clarity

I guess I've been totalling them as one huge pool for attributes, because I figure spirits are really really customized to whatever their function is. Mortals are bound by a hierarchy in attributes, but as I see it, spirits are really defined by their virtues, and their attributes just reflect their purpose. I imagine I could look deeper at the numbers and possibly find a pattern, but I think it makes plenty sense to just make it an all-purpose pool. As well as easier to record. Finally, the number includes the default '1' because you can easily have spirits with no sentience (0 Intelligence) or completely and permanently ephemeral (0 Strength), for instance. Does that sound feasible? --UncleChu

Oh, it's both feasible and reasonable. I just want to make sure that it's on record that those pools assume a starting blank-plate of zero dots in everything, which is against the commonly found norm in White Wolf's games. -- GreenLantern, supporting you, just wanting it out in the open

Yeah, it would suck to be a spirit PC. Heck, even using these to make Allies needs be watched... gonna make a Note of that... --UncleChu

Well.. I did think, of one point, of allowing spirit PC's on an online game: The player would have to decide what they were the gosd of, spend their points, and the points would be approved.. by comparison with the thing they were a god of: potentially, each stat might be associated with an aspect of that Thing. THen, well, the spirit wouldn't be able to spend XP, per se: It could only increase skills or stats by... changing and improving the thing it was good of. so, the road god wants to become more martial, he has to increase his military importance, military traffic, say - which would let him increase all his combat skills, if he wished. Similarly, if something dropped... It was a rough schema, never finalized, but.. well. - Molikai

Duplicate labor: http://wiki.stryck.com/Exalted/SustainersOfTheRealm - willows

Its not quite duplicate to what I'm doing. The spirits outlined in this supplement are already underpowered than what canon spirit stats indicate. On the flipside, backgrounds are far more apparent, and obviously spirits can grow. If anything, this project would help align Sustainers of the Realm more accurately with canon spirits. I'll link it up top as an alternative for PC spirits, though! --UncleChu

I'm up for additional tallying, and I've got all of the books. Would you like me to just list the stats, send them to you, or should I add them into the calculations? Also, I'm wondering if, given the vagaries of specialization among spirits and the effects of an "experience" based world, the mean would be as important as the average. --IsawaBrian

Ah, awesome, tallying is indeed a slightly time-consuming effort. If you'd like to help, you can just dive in and start adding them straight to the Wiki. For spirits I've already covered the essence of, its as simple as just adding their name to the list at the beginning, and then going down the chart and adding their number to the end. Then calculate a fresh average up. And that would be the arithmetic mean kind of average, where you add them all and divide the sum by the sample size, rounded to the closest integer. So which other kind do you think would be as important, the median or the mode? You can figure out the mode just by looking at the sample.

If you want to start tallying spirits with higher essences, then just copy the format and fill 'em in. I think there needs to be at LEAST two or three spirits of the same Essence to make tallying worthwhile. Like, there's only one Essence 4 demon in GoD, so unless there's more in the STC, lets leave it alone for now. We can speculate stats once we have all the 1E canon spirits accounted for. Oh yeah, and finally, if you come across variable stats like the Forest Walker or Scarab Guardian, either take an average, or just make a -- mark or something and list it as being too funky to add to the calculations. --UncleChu

Oi. I meant the median. Shows I shouldn't be posting too early in the morning. The reason I think the median is more important is because of mega-physical types like Siakal, and the weird backgrounds. I suspect it's not going to matter too much on mental and social attributes, but since we're doing them as a collective whole, we need some way to account for the "aggressively physical" spirits. Work just blew up in my face, so I won't be able to start until tuesday, but, heh, I'll just start grabbing random books and implementing. Median shouldn't be a problem. For variable-stat ones, I think an average, plus an occasional weight (if x beastie has strength y most of the time, but 2Y in special situations, I'd be tempted to count the extra boost less, or possibly even call it a Charm-equivalent!) --IsawaBrian

Also, one more question: should I include the stats of named low-essence types? For example, counting Wong Bongerok for Essence 7 or Luisa Seragon for Essence 5 seems about right; at that point, you're mainly getting named people anyway. But Ulito Swan has Charm-levels and other boosted powers that you wouldn't ordinarily see outside the Essence 6+ range (probably because of Plot), like unlimited/all Charms. For that matter, how should unlimited be counted? -- IsawaBrian

Overall, I'd say do what feels best, touch and go. I think if a spirit is Essence 5 even if they are supercharged with Plot, then they should be counted up in Essence 5. This place should serve as guidelines of what's reasonable and feasible within an Essence rank to determine power. If a spirit has all charms, i dunno ,can the Wiki make a little infinity symbol? Tuck it into the Notes: at the end of the chart, "All charms can be available" or something, and just mark n/a or -- in the sample, not counting it in the count. I'm inviting people to help, so I'm not gonna be a dictator of how tallying ends up. If I see something weird, I'll ask about it. I appreciate your help! --UncleChu

One more thing-- have you been counting the Specialties in the ability dots, or no? -- IsawaBrian

No, I usually just mention in the notes the max number of specialty dots. I do, however, count all charms listed in parenthesis as full charms. --UncleChu