Difference between revisions of "Kurulham/FirstEditionHouseRules"

Revision as of 00:36, 6 April 2010

I like giving the developers the benefit of the doubt. They do get paid to write this stuff, after all, and they've probably spent a lot more time thinking about it than I have. Still, there are a few clarifications and changes to the rules which I use in my games. Comments, especially comments pointing out situations and combinations I may not have considered, are welcome.

I take a page from RSB when I approach rules - rigorous interpretation. I fully acknowledge that the rules are made to be broken; however, the breaking of rules should only be done if you know precisely what rule you're breaking in the first place. This leads me into d20-like verbal gymnastics occasionally, but I'm a linguist by profession, so I don't care. The list of Charms whose effects I have house-ruled is longer than my arm; most of these adjustments are very minor, just to make the wording unambiguous. Those changes are not posted here, both because I don't want to take the time to move them from the text file where they live and because of potential copyright issues.

Basic Ruleset

Exalted Power Combat is used in my games, with one change. A character may act on her initiative, as normal, or she may hold her action, suffering the normal dice penalty for acting after her initiative, or she may delay her action, specifying the circumstances under which she will act and the actions she will take then, including splitting her dice pool, Charm use, etc. Her initiative count then effectively becomes "when this condition is fulfilled". She may abort her action as normal. Once the condition is fulfilled, she may choose to act differently; however, she then suffers twice the normal penalty for holding her action.

Combos

Unlike many people, I do not see the generally-accepted "simple, supplemental and extra action Charms in a Combo all have to be of the same Ability" as supported per se by the published ruleset; the interaction of supplemental and EA Charms gets a little wonky when you have EA Charms that can give actions from multiple Abilities. I'm thinking particularly of Tornado Offense Technique, as it is written. Therefore, I consider this a house rule, but I do in fact play with it:

• No Combo can include simple, supplemental or extra action Charms of different Abilities. Charms which specifically state they can be used in a Combo with Charms of other Abilities are exempt from this restriction, as are reflexive Charms.

Dice Adder Limits

It is not clearly stated in canon how Martial Arts Charms interact with Exalt-type dice adder limits, or how those limits interact with each other. Therefore, I use this rule.

• Unless otherwise stated, no roll can have a number of dice added by any combination of effects that includes a Charm of a given type than the dice adder cap for that type. The dice adder cap always uses the Traits of the character making the roll. The dice adder caps are:
  • For Solar Charms: Attribute + Ability.
  • For Abyssal Charms: Attribute + Ability.
  • For Lunar Charms: Attribute.
  • For Alchemical Charms: Attribute.
  • For Sidereal Charms: Essence.
  • For Terrestrial Charms: Ability + Specialty.
  • For spirit Charms: Virtue.
  • For Martial Arts Charms: Attribute + Ability.
  • For raksha Charms for shaping actions: Attributy + Ability.
  • For raksha Charms for dice actions: highest feeding Virtue.

(Note that this makes a great deal of Charm text redundant.)

Martial Arts

Dreaming Pearl Courtesan Style

Dreaming Pearl Courtesan Style does not exist in my games. This is not because I have any particular problem with it so much as because I just plain don't know what to think about it. It's amazingly cool (though I have some misgivings about requiring Solar Charms in a martial arts style) up until the last three Charms, when it gets just plain strange. Those are the sort of effects I'd expect to see out of a particularly bizarre low-end Sidereal style, though I grant that mechanically they are not Sidereal in power. If (for some reason) a character in a game of mine wanted to learn it, I'd sit down and bang out house rules for it, but for now I just don't care enough to deal with a headache this big.

Air Dragon Style

Fighting chains, seven-section staves, and chakrams are considered form weapons of the Air Dragon Style, although only chakrams gain the signature weapon benefit. (This to bring the rules in line with the description on p. 238 of the Dragon-Blooded book.)

Perfection

A "perfect effect" is one that always succeeds at what it does. Always. Period. It is, after all, perfect. "What it does", however, might not apply in every circumstance.

The most basic example of this is Seven Shadow Evasion. Seven Shadow Evasion is a perfect dodge. It will always dodge an attack. Some attacks, however, will hit regardless of whether or not you dodge them - this is my definition of being "undodgeable". You can dodge the attack all you want; it doesn't care.

Similarly, Impeding the Flow is a perfect parry. Yes, I know it says it's not a perfect effect, but these are house rules, so I can do whatever I want.

Heavenly Guardian Defense is a perfect combat defense, which counts as a parry. It is not a perfect parry, but a more powerful animal entirely which happens to take the form of a parry. It will still, however, not defend against attacks of which the user is not aware - not because the Charm is ineffective against them, but because the character doesn't know to use the Charm! Note that it does still count as a parry.

Adamant Skin Technique is a perfect damage reducer, which can be referred to in shorthand as a perfect soak, though that terminology is slightly misleading. You take health levels of damage, it reduces them to 0. Bam. Again, as noted in the book, it doesn't protect you from other assorted nasty effects of the attack (or whatever was doing you damage).

Accuracy Without Distance is a strange animal. Since defense still trumps offense, there is no such thing as a "perfect attack". There are, however, undodgeable and unblockable attacks. The best way I've thought of to handle AWD in my house ruleset is this: AWD is an unblockable, undodgeable attack, which nevertheless has its attack successes reduced by dodges and blocks as normal, to a minimum of one. Perfect dodges and perfect blocks reduce the attack successes to one.

Stunts

Stunts break the rules. They're supposed to. Things can be possible with stunts that are impossible without them: dodging the undodgeable, blocking the unblockable, and (theoretically) soaking the unsoakable. However, stunts cannot trump perfection.

Weapon Statistics

I personally think standard daiklaves are too powerful in relation to other weapons - specifically, reaper daiklaves and grimcleavers. Thus, I have altered the weapon stats given in the Players Guide. Also, the artifact version of a poleaxe or halberd is known as a hellglaive (thank you, Warhammer 40,000!) - its stats are also given.

Weapon Name:     Spd     Acc     Dam     Def     Rate     Notes
Daiklave         +7      +3      +6L     +1      4
Reaper Daiklave  +8      +4      +4L     +2      5
Reaver Daiklave  +7      +3      +8L     +0      4
Grimcleaver      +5      +2      +10L    -1      4
Goremaul         +7      +1      +6L     +1      4        Piercing damage
Hellglaive       +9      +0      +11L    +1      3

Comments

Very slick, and as a Former Magic: The Gathering player I know well the wording game =) I'll be printing this out and sticking it in my homebrew folder. Very similar to what I do in my games, except I still use "Declare up, act down" ~ BrigandRansom

You too, huh? ::grins:: I am continually amazed by how much Magic shaped my attitude towards gaming, even all these years later after I've discarded so much of what I took from it. I love DUAD, I really do, but it slows down gameplay much more than I like. Actually I'm pretty unsatisfied with the way timing works in Exalted in general; I'm anxiously waiting for the rewrite in ExaltedSecond, but for now, what I have works fine for me. - Kurulham

I run very cinematic games, heavy on stunts. Once your players are used to it, you can flow through pretty quickly with some dazzling visual imagery. To be honest, my only concern about ExaltedSecond is buying more books =) It was allright adapting from WoD to Exalted, but I've been with this combat system for a while now (through some slight variations, I still love the Combat Book for Wod) ~ BrigandRansom

The main problem I find with DUAD is that high-initiative actions tend to make low-initiative actions meaningless. "I hit him." "Well, uh, I jump up to the second floor before you can hit me. So there!" "Well, I grab you before you can jump!" "No, I kick you across the room before you can grab him!" ::rolls his eyes:: It wasn't that bad, of course, but that's what it boiled down to. That kind of thing's better for shaping combat. ::grins:: As it is, you can force someone slower to react to you, unless they have magic which allows them supernatural reflexes (i.e. reflexive/persistent defense Charms), so it models things well enough to get by - and I found my players are actually more likely to do really spectacular stunts, as they don't have to worry about someone making it inapplicable. (As to buying books... well. Let's just say that part-timing at a gaming store has its advantages!) - Kurulham

I'm curious about how you come to the conclusion that the printed rules don't necessarily support the widely-held belief that Simple, Supplemental, and Extra Action Charms must be of the same Ability. It seems very clear to me, though I think it would be much clearer if the rule-list for Extra Action Charms was ahead of the Simple and Supplemental rule-lists when the Combo rules are printed out. - David.

It basically comes down to this: simple and extra action Charms of different Abilities don't go together, as written. Neither do simple and supplemental Charms. Most extra action and supplemental Charms of different Abilities don't go together. However, it's not explicitly stated; all that is stated is that supplemental Charms must benefit uses of the Ability they are based on, and must benefit every action taken. Most EA Charms will only provide uses of the ability they're based on. However, as written, Tornado Offense Technique can provide any ranged attack, not just those that count as unarmed Martial Arts attacks. So you have a situation where, theoretically, you could use TOT to give you a bunch of Thrown attacks, and then use, say, Loyal Weapon on all of them to let you throw your daiklave at someone really a lot. (This is in fact the example which brought the problem to my attention.) I don't have any problem with this in theory, but it's a gap in the rules that I thought needed plugged. This is the only example I've run across of such a problem; the intent of each rule seems clear, but it doesn't quite mesh with the way either is written. - Kurulham

I don't think it's a gap at all, though. I think it's intended. Leaving the rules as-written means that there are certain Extra Actions Charms that are more powerful, because they are more flexible. I think that's intended - the three I can think of off-hand (Harmony of Blows, Striking Serpent Speed, and Tornado Offense Technique) are rather expensive or unreliable, compared to Charms with comparable effects, so I think the ability to use those with Supplementals from other Abilities is taken into account there. I will admit, though, that throughout Air Dragon Style, when the phrase "ranged attack" appears, it often seems as though the author is trying to make explicit note of the ability of Air Immaculates to make ranged attacks, due to the signature weapon. Then again, considering that Tornado Offense Technique is a bit more expensive than Charms with comparable effects, and it's part of one of the MAs that, canonically, is notably more effective than most Celestial-level MAs ... well, it's concievable that those Charms are intended to function precisely as their wording could indicate. If you have a problem with TOT, though, I would recommend houseruling that Charm, rather than altering the Combo rules, as I think the Combo rules are arranged with this sort of thing in mind. - David.

"Gap" was the wrong choice of words. "Potential ambiguity" is more what I meant. And note two things: I "houseruled" Combos to make them work like most people read them to work in canon, and I did houserule TOT. - Kurulham

Again, I don't think it's potential ambiguity, I think it's an intentional arrangement. I think the further restriction you impose unnecessarily weakens certain Charms that were written with the alleged ambiguity in mind. - David.

Your point about Charm balance is taken; however, I think the whole thing is written a bit sloppily. I think writing it as it is commonly understood and noting specific exceptions - which, if you will note, number three, out of dozens of extra action Charms - is much clearer and less of a headache. I'm still not sure whether I like the idea of MA EA Charms giving non-MA attacks, though. (I have no problem with them giving dodges). At any rate, I very much don't like the idea of a secular archer (not a two-aspected Immaculate) using TOT with a bow. I'll have to think about this. - Kurulham

There is the siddie melee charm,Harmony of Blows, an extra action type charm that provides the character two additional attacks which can be made using brawl, melee, thrown, or archery. The restrictions: "This charm is explicitly permitted to be in a Combo with Charms of other Abilities. Note that the rules on Combos may limit the kinds of actions a character can take." I don't know that this charm has the same gap due to the caveat at the end, but I thought it would be worth bringing to the table.-Ambisinister

To clarify, it does have the same 'gap' (if it is a gap... for the sidereal one, it seems intentional). The disclaimer is simply there to point out that if you combo it with an archery supplemental, for example, all your extra actions must be archery-based, since a supplemental must be used with every action you take. However, since the entire charm is explicitly cross-comboable, I believe you could also use it with simple charms from other abilities, since charm-text overrides rules-text, but unfortunately it doesn't state that -part- explicitly, and so from reading the rules the simple charm you're using with it would ALSO have to be explicitly cross-comboable. Actually, it's weird, but extra action charms work fine with simples from anywhere, it's the other way around the corebook rules object to.(The EA charm is fine, but the simple won't work unless the EA charmtype matches its own. As always, Exalted is a game of interpretation ^_^
-- Darloth

I recognize that this is a house rule, but I was curious - usually, spirit Charms use Virtue as their cap. Was there a particular reason that you went with Essence instead? - FrivYeti

Yes: A poor memory! ::grins:: Fixed. - Kurulham