DariusSolluman/PermanentCharms
Some of these, I am shamelessly ripping off (often with the name changed, adding insult to injury) from other Charms I've seen on the Wiki. If you see a Charm that is yours with the serial numbers filed off, it's unintentional and I apologize.
Additionally, these Charms are NOT approved for my players. I don't feel confident enough in their pricing/controls/requirements yet.
Ability Enhancements
Body Improving Exercise
Cost: Special Duration: Permanent Type: Special Min. Athletics: 5 Min. Essence: 5 Prereqs: None
The Exalted are stronger, hardier and faster than you. They are better than any mortal can aspire to be. Their weakness is still greater than the greatest strength mortal frames can bear.
Each time Body Improve Exercise is taken, the character gains permanently increases either Strength, Dexterity or Stamina by one. Body Improving Exercise cannot be taken more times than the Character's Athletics, and a Character's Attributes cannot rise higher than their Permanent Essence. In addition, Body Improving Exercise has a cost of (Attribute) x4, where (Attribute) is the current level of the attribute it is being bought for.
These additions are considered natural for the purposes of dice adders. An Exalt with a Dexterity of 6 and a Melee of 5 may add up to 11 dice with Excellent Strike.
Socially Gifting Technique
Cost: Special Duration: Permanent Type: Special Min. Presence: 5 Min. Essence: 5 Prereqs: None
As Body Improving Exercise, except for Appearance, Charisma and Manipulation.
Keen Witted Meditation
Cost: Special Duration: Permanent Type: Special Min. Lore: 5 Min. Essence: 5 Prereqs: None
As Body Improving Exercise, except for Intelligence, Perception and Wits.
Ability Enhancement
(Ability) Mastering Prana
Cost: Special Duration: Permanent Type: Special Min. (Ability): 5 Min. Essence: 5 Prereqs: None
Allows an Exalt to more totally master any Ability than is normally mortally possible. Each time (Ability) Mastering Prana is taken, the Exalt gains an additional pair of Specialities relating to the Ability, which may be used to bring a Speciality to over 3 (although a Speciality may not exceed the Ability it is based on). Alternatively, by buying tha (Ability) Mastering Prana with an additional (Ability) x2 experience, they may gain an additional dot in the Ability in question. No Ability may excede the Exalt's Permanent Essence.
(Ability) Mastering Prana may only be taken a number times equal to the Exalt's Permanent Essence for a given Ability.
Other Attribute Enhancing Things
Durable Rhino Hide
Cost: None Duration: Permanent Type: Special Min. Resistance: 1 Min. Essence: 1 Prereqs: None
Durable Rhino Hide grants an Exalt an additional 2B soak each time it is taken. It may be taken at most three times.
Skin of Steel
Cost: None Duration: Permanent Type: Special Min. Resistance: 3 Min. Essence: 2 Prereqs: Durable Rhino Hide
Skin of Steel grants an Exalt an additional 1B and 1L soak each time it is taken. It may be taken at most three times.
Impervious Flesh
Cost: None Duration: Permanent Type: Special Min. Resistance: 5 Min. Essence: 3 Prereqs: Skin of Steel
Impervious Flesh grants the character ignore incoming damage. If an attack does (pre-soak) fewer dice of damage than the number of times the character has taken Impervious Flesh, the attack does no damage. Thus, if an Exalt has taken Impervious Flesh three times and is wearing superheavy plate, a three die attack would be meaningless, but a four die attack would still roll one damage die. Impervious Flesh may be taken at most three times, and does not actually add any soak- either it works, or it doesn't.
Comments
I am concerned as to the cost and effectiveness of the attribute and ability enhancing charms.
"Each time Body Improve Exercise is taken, permanently increase either Strength, Dexterity or Stamina by one. Body Improving Exercise cannot be taken more times than the Character's Athletics, and a Character's Attributes cannot rise higher than their Permanent Essence. "
Most people I know are more than happy to use the (possibly suggested by GCG, can't remember) idea that once your essence exceeds 5 your essence becomes the cap on your abilities. That means that this charm is good for saving you vast amounts of xp, but that's it. Someone with essence 5 wanting to raise Str from 4 to 5 would pay 16xp. Or they could buy this charm for 8xp (if favoured). It doesn't actually give you any cool funky powers, it just lets you increase attributes cheaper, which is wrong in my book.
Hm. I'd read that, but got impatient. ;) I'd actually expect something like the old Streetfighter RPG, where increasing your stats to superhuman levels requires an increase in the per dot experience... which makes the Attribute Enhancing Charms even more redundent.
Right. Adjusting. - DariusSolluman
Similarly, the ability mastering prana. I like the idea that it can be used to increase specialties above 3 and at a reasonable cost (2 dots of specialty would cost 6 xp, this costs 8 or 10 but lets you go above 3) but getting extra dots of an ability would not be worth it (ability from 4 to 5 costs 8xp, so this charm is pointless as far as that goes). These charms would be useful if you have a hard cap of 5 on all attributes and abilities even when essence exceeds 5, but canon doesn't really support that (just look at Mask of Winters' stats). What I might suggest is allowing this sort of charm to be taken once for each ability or attribute to allow you to purchase an additional dot in it (to either 6 or your essence+1, whichever is higher) but the charms should not actually give the dot IMO, just let you buy it with xp as normal.
Well, Mask of Winters is a somewhat special case, since we don't have a precise Charm breakdown on him. It could be that Charms like these will spring into existance in the Player's Guide.
But yeah. Made a similiar cost adjustment to the Ability increaser for cost. - DariusSolluman
Durable Rhino Hide and Skin of Steel are nice ideas, but I think the pre-reqs are a bit too low, and I'd be concerned about such things if people took them more than once. If they were once only (or resistance -3 times only), or if they had much higher pre-reqs I might think them more useable (I am a big fan of the Lunars, and these charms look more like the sort of thing I'd expect them to get as they are written now...). Impervious Flesh would be fine if you could only buy it as many times as you have resistance dots. A Solar with 5 points of ignoring damage is starting to get scary, but Lunars can still be better if they are geared towards it.
Just my thoughts - CorlanDashiva
I'm actually less leary of these than I am of some of the other problems you mentioned. Between Durability of Oak Meditation, Spirit Strengthing Exercise and Iron Skin Concentration, it's fairly possible to get a bashing and lethal soak of +9B/+10L as is. Granted, that would require about four turns, 21 motes and a Willpower. Hum.
You have an excellent point. I think I'll knock those three to only being takable thrice each. That lowers the soak they provide enough that someone seriously after unarmored soak would want more. - DariusSolluman
