FrivYeti/PCECharms
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Charm Rules
The key aspect to this revision is to allow younger Exalts a better chance at surviving encounters with their elder peers. As such, the revision of general Charm rules is a critical part of Power Ceiling Exalted, and functions as follows.
There is a limit to the power that individual Charms can reach, and this limit is Essence 5. With few exceptions, noted below, no supernatural being can purchase or develop Charms past Essence 5 - once a character reaches Essence 6, her natural power has surpassed the ability of Creation or the Wyld to process it, and no further refinement is possible. In addition, any existing Charms that have additional effects at Essence 6 or higher lose those effects, retaining only their usual effects at Essence 5.
Characters of Essence 6 and higher may still increase their Traits, Essence pools, and so on, but do not develop large numbers of vastly dangerous effects. The sole exception are Elder Charms.
Elder Charms
When a character first reaches Essence 6, she develops capabilities that are unique to her, and as her Essence rises, so do they. To reflect this, any character who raises her Essence to 6 or higher using permanent effects may purchase one Elder Charm for each dot of Essence she has past 5. In addition, she must have purchased all possible Elder Charms before she can raise her Essence again (that is, at each Essence dot the character must purchase a single such Charm before raising her Essence again.)
Elder Charms follow certain rules. First, they always have an existing Essence 4 or 5 Charm as a prerequisite, and must fall into a Caste or Favored Trait. If a character somehow reaches Essence 6 without knowing any Essence 4 or 5 Charms in a Caste or Favored Trait, she cannot develop any Elder Charms until she first develops an Essence 4 or 5 Charm. Secondly, Elder Charms are always effectively Essence 6, regardless of when the character purchases them. Third, they can be permanent upgrades to existing Essence 4-5 Charms. Elder Charms cannot be learned by members of the Eclipse Caste (even as Elder Charms of those Eclipses). They are too integral to a character's nature. They are generally unique, with a few exceptions listed below, and are always reflective of the nature of the Exalt who learned them. Finally, a character may only learn their required Elder Charm for each Essence dot past 5; she may never have more.
Characters can change their Elder Charms, but this is difficult. It requires spending a full season of training time, as the character realigns her Essence with a new, altered nature. At the end, the character recovers half of the experience spent on the Elder Charm, and must then purchase a new one as usual.
Elder Charms may also interact with Limit in a variety of subtle ways, which vary depending on the Exalt type. It is never required for elders to be driven in this way, but it is always a possibility. Such Charms are more powerful than those that do not affect Limit (thematically, the character has to subconsciously reduce her power to account for Limit, and thus the more powerful effects are the baseline that are worked from.)
Elder Charms and Lunars
Lunars may choose to take Essence 6 Knacks as some of their Elder Charms, provided they are branching off from an Essence 5 Knack that the Lunar possesses.
Elder Charms and Sidereals
Sidereals cannot create their own Charms. Instead, they can learn advanced understandings of astrology or the Martial Arts. Essence 6 Astrologies are known as the Elder Signs, and require the character to have 5 dots in at least two Colleges, plus an additional College for every Elder Sign she wishes to learn past the first. Essence 6 Martial Arts Charms are the Secret Techniques of the Sidereal Martial Arts, and require mastery of an entire Sidereal martial arts tree (this is obviously somewhat more difficult).
Elder Charms and Spirits
Spirits may develop unique elder Charms, but there is also a special rule in play for them - any spirit (god, demon or elemental) of Essence 7 or higher may choose to take an All-Encompassing version of an Essence 5 Charm as one of their Elder Charms, despite the fact that this technically pushes it past Essence 6. This applies equally to their ability to create wide-area Charms.
