SolarPerformance/FluffySquirrel

A reworking on the old King of Masks Technique from 1e, to 2e.. ... it's changed a fair bit..

King of Masks Technique

Cost:  7 motes; Mins: Performance 4, Essence 2; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-Basic
Duration: 1 day
Prerequisite Charms: Any Performance Excellency

Through the use of this Charm, the Exalted weaves a complicated false identity around herself. The identity is complete a detailed history and personality traits. Mere conversation cannot detect any flaws in the identity. In fact, the infallibility of the identity is perfect unless the Exalted chooses to drop the façade or she is faced with investigative charms such as Evidence Discerning Method or others that can discern a targets personality or traits.

When invoking this charm, the Exalted crafts a back-story for herself and makes an Intelligence + Performance roll to represent the intricacy of the persona. Charm powered investigation attempts can see through the false identity by beating the successes on this roll. Should anyone pierce the false identity however, the charm instantly ends.

Impenetrable Identity

Cost: –; Mins: Performance 5, Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: King of Masks Technique

This charm enhances the Exalt’s King of Masks Technique, allowing the character to make permanent identities. When creating an identity as normal using King of Masks Technique, the character may spend 1 experience point and make the identity permanent, giving him several benefits.

Firstly, the difficulty of any opposed roll to see through the identity is raised by 2, and should the identity be pierced, it still persists, and can be used against other people. Anyone who is told of the fake identity can freely try to pierce it without requiring the use of charms.

Secondly, the exalt can activate the King of Masks Technique for any permanent identity at the cost of only 4 committed motes.

Thirdly, the exalt can buy backgrounds for an identity at the cost of only 1 experience point per background dot. However, backgrounds can't be purchased higher than 3 dots, and the total number of background points per identity can't exceed the exalts essence.

An exalt can only have as many permanent identities as his essence, although he can discard any identity if he wishes. The experience cost is not refunded if he chooses to discard an identity however.

Comments

I like King of Masks a lot, but wonder if clarification of a mechanical nature is needed. For example, do you get contacts to go with your new identity? Will the guys down at the dock recognize you as a fellow dock-worker? What about influence - what if you're pretending to be a Dynast - can you convince your 'superior' to loan you equipment? As for the other one, while I don't like it much (because I feel like it's far too underpowered, and over-costed - spending 1 permanent XP for a single identity stinks, IMHO), it's only because the canonical one stinks too, and thus, it's not your fault. -- GreenLantern

Hehe, yeah... the irony is .. it's FAR better than the original one.. in that one you could spend an xp and just have it investigated away.. but yeah.. maybe should clarify stuff like that.. .. given people get fooled by it when they meet you.. I'd say they could probably meet you, and think they recognise you.. but I get wary of giving yourself tons of stuff by setting yourself high up... hmm.. any ideas as to how to work it?.. I'm really not sure FluffySquirrel

Well, the Sidereal version of the charm gives you a fixed number of background points to allocate, and ones above 3 cost double, as usual. This allows you to use your 'fake' backgrounds, but requires you to ignore your real backgrounds while under disguise. Unlike the Solar one, however, once you drop a disguise, you can't go back to it, meaning you can't exploit things as much. Sure, there's still tons of exploitation possible (Picking up Salary 5, Allies 5, getting a whole bunch of money from the bank, raking in favors, then vanishing), but there's at least a system. I'm not saying that is or isn't the way to go, but given the precedent the Sidereal version has for giving actual backgrounds, I'm inclined to go with it, somehow. -- GreenLantern

Probably best if only the permanent one has background points available.. and will have to limit it to socially based ones like Contacts, Backing etc.. otherwise you'd slap on your moneybags identity and pop to the bank ^^ Will have a chat to the ST of the game I'm going to be using it in.. see what she thinks.. could at worse just give you a set amount of points to put in contacts .. as those tend to require trades or favours or such.. maybe permanent essence points to put in various levels of contacts? FluffySquirrel

Talked it over with ST, and we still didn't hugely like the idea of giving away tons of background points, so came up with other idea instead. For each permanent identity, you can now buy background points (up to 3) at the cost of 1xp a point.. which is a nice enough discount to be potentially worthwile, and yet not exactly overpowering.. I like it :) FluffySquirrel