AlternateMechanics/DSAlternateAura

A random thought for Exalted combat. It would add to the complexity for little more than visual gain, but would mesh in with my personal visualization/animization slightly better. :)

To use Peripheral Essence in a quick fashion, a character must liberate it. This has the same effect as spending it, in so far as the Aura is concerned, save that getting past the Iconic level leaves the character with their Iconic Aura instead of it dying down to the bonfire almost right away.

This essence is Liberated. Spending it will damp the character's aura, and a character can simply release it (dispates without effect), which will also aura damp. Characters can only use Liberated and Personal Essence in a fight.

A character need not and cannot Liberate their full Periphereal pool at once. As a Simple Action over three turns, they can Liberate a third of their Peripheral Pool. In one turn they can Liberate up to their Permanent Essence in motes as a dice action. (first action taken on initative, can only be done once a turn)

Thus why characters 'powering up' tend to start glowing wildly and get ever dimmer as they grow closer and closer to death.

During non-combat situations, Essence works as per normal- the timing isn't as rigerous there, and precisely when someone Liberates the essence for a social or stealth Charm isn't as important.

Yeah. Like I said, just a wacky thought :)

So I have to Liberate my Peripheral before I can use it? Wouldn't that take a very long time to pull out? I mean, i guess you could do it on an as-needed basis, and you could have Personal for those moments when you've run out and *have* to HGD this round. Hmm.....I kinda like it.

Exactly. That's why, before any fight, both sides spend time powering up. And that's also how you can have the stupidly powerful Big Bad that contempetously doesn't /need/ to power up. DS

I am a bit confused by the statement "As a Simple Action over three turns, they can Liberate a third of their Periphereal Pool in one turn;". Does it take one turn or three? - Malikai

There are two ways to Liberate: The first is to declare "I'm powering up." Over the next three turns, you do *nothing* but concentrate and at the end of it, a third of your Peripheral pool is Liberated. If my Peripheral pool is 30, and I do this long-term thing, at the end of three rounds, I have Liberated 10 Peripheral.

The second version is a bit quicker, but doesn't Liberate *nearly* as much. You just take a dice action (meaning you can do it and something else), cry out "Woohah! I have teh powah!" and you Liberate an amount of Peripheral Essence equal to your Permanant Essence. If I had a Permanant Essence of 5, and take a dice action to Liberate, I free up 5 motes of Peripheral." -Dim

So is that a dice action, or the dice action for the turn? If it's the former, how many of these dice actions can you split your "pool" into if you want to spend a whole turn "quick-powering?" - SMK

It is a dice action, but you can only perform it once per turn. If you want to liberate your pool faster than that, you have to do the three turns straight Simple actions. DS

I think I see where the bemused comment from Malikai came from, and have altered your punctuation and word order a little, hope you don't mind. Also, I comment that 1/3rd may not be enough... Most people have peripheral pools around 30 to 50, give or take commited. At essence 2, 6 motes is less than 10 motes, but not by a lot, and you get to do other things for those three rounds. At essence 4 (Assuming a pool of 45, with a med will med virtue character) 12 is not a lot lower than 15. Perhaps you should make it half your pool? Admittedly, the way the slow method becomes less useful as essence grows higher is a good thing in some respects. It means that really powerful people find it inefficient to sit there straining for 3 rounds and just power up as they go along. - Darloth