Heru/ModifiedAbility
Modified Abilities
The idea behind this page is that mundane beings are not as capable as supernaturals in the easy learning about the universe. That while supernaturals are capable of learning the whole easier, mundanes must specialize in learning parts or spend years learning the whole. This is represented by making it so that mundanes need to take multiple Abilities to try and get a picture of the whole.
For the record Supernatural beings include anybody with Awakened Essence - be it enlightened mortals, gods, elementals, exalts of any kind, dragon-kings, mountain folk, fair folk, demons, etc. Mundanes are extras, mortals, heroic mortals and the like without any sort of ability to utilize their personal Essence.
Craft
The main change about Craft is that while mundane individuals have five Craft skills which cover all aspects of their craft, supernatural beings have a single mundane Craft skill and numerous supernatural Craft skills.
The five mundane Craft Abilities are the standard 2nd Edition Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Wood.
The Craft Abilities pertaining to Supernatural beings include such examples as:
- Elemental: This Craft contains within it all five mundane crafts. For supernatural beings this craft replaces the need to learn the individual mundane crafts.
- Magitech: As normal, advanced inorganic magic.
- Genesis: As normal, advanced biological magic.
Lore
For mortals, Lore is like Craft in that it is divided into five mundane categories that must be bought separately. For supernatural beings, included all Exalted as well as Awakened Mortals, Lore operates as it always did - one super-Ability. The point of this rule is to emphasize the difference between mortals and exalts and how each group is capable of understanding the secrets of the universe - mundanes must due to it in pieces while supernaturals are capable of understanding the whole.
The five mundane Lore Abilities are:
- Air: Art, Enchanted Devices. (Creative knoweldge)
- Earth: Earth and Life Sciences, History, Geography, Nations. (Dealing with constants)
- Fire: Popular Culture, Streetwise, Business. (Always changing as if it were alive)
- Water: Behavioral Sciences, Theology and Philosophy. (Dealing with deeper concepts)
- Wood: Technology, Civics. (Dealing with everyone working together)
The supernatural Lore Abilities are:
- Elemental: This Lore contains within it all five mundane Lore Abilities. For supernatural beings this Lore replaces the need to learn the individual mundane Lores.
- Others will be thought up, but they haven't been yet.
Occult
I was thinking, though I am not sure yet, to do the same for the Occult Ability. Ideas would be appreciated.
Notes
Ideas for both other Supernatural Craft Abilities and for other Supernatural Lore Abilities are appreciated as would any ideas for Occult. Indeed, if you figure that some of the other abilities would also make sense to differentiate into this way for mortals, please tell me I would be interested in hearing it.
Comments
I absolutely love the idea. I've always thought mortals should have to specialize more than the Exalted, but the rules never made it inherent in the system. One thing I would note - I personally think business is a water aspected lore, rather than fire. Mind, lore is about knowledge, and historically, it's the water-aspected bureaucrats who are known for this sort of thing. Additionally, Earth seems to be by far the most useful of the Lores, in the traditional "Lore" sense. Many of those other things, such as streetwise (Larceny), Technology (Craft), etc aren't things you often make Lore rolls about. In 90% of the Lore rolls in the games I've played, Earth would cover it. Thus, Earth seems slightly out-of-balance in power - that is, unless you want it to be semi-easy to hit old power levels. If that's the case, however, no one's ever going to buy the other ones, leaving you with a wasted new system mechanic. -- GreenLantern
First, thanks for the comments, its appreciated and very much liked. I am going t give you suggesstions a great deal of thought. One of the hardest parts of coming up with my system was deciding which element all aspects of Lore fit into. Its somewhat hard because I had to apply it to both the general descriptions of the elements as well as Exalted's slightly modified versions. I do want to make this 'fair' for mundane characters and I want to make each of the separate abilities equally common and useful. I mean as this doesn't apply to the Exalted its not as important as something else, like charm balance or whatever, but still, i t is incredibly useful in a mortal game or something. -Heru
