VioletCrazyGirl/VirtuousExalted

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Exalted has this lovely mix of crunch and flavor. I like the munch, I enjoy it, but there are definitely points where I'd like Exalted to run faster. I want combat to be more cinema and less dice-tallying. I want the system to connect to the genre a bit better. And I want it to help me resolve conflicts, because I am into that.

Thus, this mod. It's mildly inspired by Nobilis, vaguely Fair Folk-ish, and borrows some from another system my friend and I designed. It needs some work, but it's close to playable, if vague on some points.

Standard disclaimer: This is not going to be all things to all people at all times. It isn't even all things to me at all times. It's an interesting restructuring of the game which will work for some games and playstyles and not others. (Not applicable in California, Oregon, or Tajikstan. Contents may have settled during shipping, and so forth.)

Basic Traits

All characters have six basic traits: Compassion, Conviction, Temperance, Valor, Essence, and Heart.

Virtues are primary traits now, because kung-fu is about the punch, but also about the emotion behind the punch. Essence is unchanged; characters have an Essence pool, as per normal. Heart is Willpower, cosmetically renamed because “willpower” makes me think of not eating chocolate-chips, as opposed to taking over the Realm.

Virtues come out a bit differently under these rules. They don't denote “how much” of that virtue a character has, but rather, how important their manifestation of that virtue is to Creation (alternate reading: “how significant it is to the story.”) It's possible for a deeply empathizing, really very nice person to have a Compassion of 1. Conversely, Hands of Ash and Blood, the infamous Abyssal torturer, has a Compassion of 5. The way he understands and interacts with other sentient beings is very, very important to his story—it additionally happens to be not very nice. Players define the nature of each of their character's Virtues.

Additionally, each Virtue has its own damage track. Characters get two damage boxes for each dot they have in a Virtue.

Essence and Heart work just like they do in normal Exalted. Characters have an Essence pool, calculated normally, and a Heart points, which can be spent in the familiar ways.

Excellencies and Charms

Excellencies are things that Exalts… excel at. They don't have to match up with standard Exalted abilities, though they can (they can also be more flavorful and character-specific). Excellencies have a rating, up to a maximum of the character's Essence. Each dot in an Excellency costs a Charm slot.

Charms are taken straight out of the Exalted books. They retain their Essence and Charm prerequisites, but no others. (Naturally, they change in other ways to fit the system as well.)

Conflict resolution

Under these rules, conflicts of fists and swords are resolved with the same mechanics as debates and, I dunno, games of gateway. The stakes for a conflict should be defined before it starts.

Basic structure

When a character joins a conflict, her player selects a primary Virtue for that conflict, narrating how it applies (“A tear falls from my eye as I look her broken, bleeding form. I will help him. I will protect him. I am using Compassion for this fight.”) The damage track for this Virtue is the one that character uses for the conflict. This isn't to say that other Virtues won't come into play, merely that the indicated Virtue is the primary motivation, and used to absorb damage.

There is no Initiative or Join Battle system; all actions in a round are assumed to happen practically simultaneously. Players declare their Stunts, and nothing is resolved until everyone has had the chance to declare a Stunt (we're using “Stunt” here to mean “action”).

Stunts

Players narrate their Stunts in the familiar way, and then support their narration with Stunt Points. By default, all Stunts start with a number of Stunt Points equal to an appropriate Virtue, as defined by the nature of the Stunt. Additionally, players may opt to:

• Use Heart. Players may spend a point of Heart to gain three SP.

OR

Channel Heart Players may spend a point of Heart and a level of damage to gain another Virtue's worth of SP.

Players of Exalted characters can also enhance their Stunts magically:

• Use an Excellency. An appropriate Excellency allows players to buy Stunt Points with Essence at a rate of the Excellency's rating in SP per mote.
• Use a Charm. Duh.

Exalts are limited in how much they can empower their Stunts through magic. Solars may gain at most a number of SP equal to their Essence + Virtue. Celestials may gain up to the Virtue used, though if they spent a point of Heart to double the power of their Virtue or gain three SP, their cap increases by that amount. Terrestrials may only gain up to their Essence in SP.

Every character performs one Stunt per turn, by default. The SP from this Stunt may be split up however the player wishes: she can defend herself from each attack leveled at her exactly as much as she wants, and she can split her SP among however many attacks and targets she wants to. If she performs a 50SP Stunt, she can attack 50 targets with a measly 1SP pat, or attack one target with a devastating 50SP blow (she can also attack that one target with 50 measly 1SP pats, which seems like a pointless distinction now, but becomes important with Artifacts, below).

Damage and Injuries, Death and Insanity

If a character's damage track goes to zero, the player has two options: give in and lose the fight, or take an Injury and continue fighting. Taking an Injury causes the character to lose one permanent point of your primary Virtue in the conflict. Its damage track then refills (to two fewer boxes than before).

Injuries are flavor. They are a record, in scars and broken bones and painful memories, of what a character has fought for, and what she's lived through. Injuries never go away, though they may change over time. The Virtue point spent is a permanent loss, though it may obviously be re-purchased with experience.

If a character is knocked down to zero points in any Virtue, they are either dead, insane, enchanted, or in some other way probably unplayable.

Damage boxes heal naturally at a rate of one level per scene. If the character succeeds in a conflict to re-assert that Virtue, she is healed completely. Additionally, after coming out of a Limit Break, characters are healed of all damage.

Artifacts, Sorcery, and Stances

In general, Artifacts have four stats: Accuracy, Damage, Defense, Rate, Attunement cost, and Draw cost. These are fairly self-explanatory. An Artifact's Accuracy is the bonus it grants, in SP, for each attack made with it. Its Damage is how much extra damage it does if the attack is not completely blocked. Its Defense is the bonus it grants, in SP, for each attack defended with it. Its Rate is the number of times it can be used per stunt. Its Attunement cost is, as usual, how many motes of Essence must be committed to the Artifact; additionally, a commitment of Stunt Points may be specified. This requires that a number of SP be spent each turn the Artifact is kept ready for use. The Draw cost is a cost, generally in SP, that must be paid to ready the Artifact. It does not have to be paid with a single Stunt; however, opponents may counter SP paid towards a partially-readied artifact with SP of their own.

Interestingly, Spells are treated exactly as Artifacts are. Their Attunement costs are pretty high, as are their Draw costs, and their Rates tend to be fairly low… but think of the Damage of Death of Obsidian Butterflies.

Stances are basically Artifact Martial Arts Forms. If this seems odd, that's because it is—I'm somewhat unsure as to whether these should be here. Nevertheless, they have interesting uses, and give “unarmed” fighters (and, for that matter, debaters) a few more munchy options.

A note on disarming: Artifacts (be they daiklaves or spells) can be disarmed. When an attack is made, the attacker simply specifies that it's a disarming blow. If the attack succeeds, the artifact is considered disarmed, and the defender must pay the Draw cost to re-arm it.

Modifying Charms

These are loose rules. Charms will probably have to be individually adapted, at least slightly. In general:

• Charms which add dice add Stunt Points, at a rate of one SP per die.
• Charms which add success add two SP per success.
• Charms which reduce TN add their TN reduction in SP for every four SP in the Stunt. This is a benefit added after all others, and it may exceed the normal SP maximums. Only Sidereals can reduce TN by four, and it requires the expenditure of a point of Heart, and two damage levels.
• Charms which do not have a mechanical effect should be made to have one.

Notes on Varions Weird Exalted Abilities(tm)

The Fair Folk's shaping combat can probably be run as a standard conflict using these rules, unmodified.

Sidereal Astrology isn't really covered, here. Vaguely, it seems like Sidereals should have to engage in a conflict to create their Astrological effect. Success gives them, perhaps, a big pool of Stunt Points they can siphon from in scenes where their Astrological effect is in force. Colleges should probably be purchased as Excellencies. (It's two lines long, and already it seems more fun than the version in the book. In part, because it's only two lines long.)