Darzoni/HeroicExalted

Hypothetical mechanics and thematics for Heroic Exalted in 2nd Edition. I implore you to leave feedback.

General Mechanics

Castes: Unlike other Exalted, Heroic Exalted have no castes. They are as varied as the people that the shards pick.

Attributes: Heroes choose an Attribute as as their Legendary Attribute, the limit on the number of dots that attribute can have is raised by one. Thus a Hero's Legendary Attribute can be raised to 6 at character creation. No Attribute may exceed the rating of the Legendary Attribute. Heroic Exalted recieve 8/6/4 for their attribute categories, and their primary Attribute category /must/ be the one containing their Legendary Attribute.

Abilities: Heroic Exalted choose 8 Abilities as favored Abilities. They then have 25 dots to distribute among their Abilities, with at least 10 dots spent on favored Abilities. No Ability can exceed 3 dots without the expenditure of bonus points.

Anima Banner: Heroes have a wide variety of anima appearances, each one unique to the Hero it belongs to. It is possible to identify individual Heroic Exalted by their Anima appearance.

Anima Effects: In addition to the normal benefits to being Exalted, Heroic Exalted are highly resistant to coercion and mental influence as a result of their design. They may spend motes to resist compulsions of any kind, paying (Compeller's Permanent Essence x8) motes.

Great Curse: There is no curse associated with the Heroes, as they were not present during the Primordial War. There are other risks in being a Hero- they seem to be particularly susceptible to Fate and Predestination (despite the frustrating attempts by Sidereals to manipulate their Fate). The more a Hero does, the more power and prestige they gather, the more ensnared in the Fate of their own making they become. Not sure how to do this mechanically.

Essence Pool: Personal- (Essence x 3) + Willpower. Peripheral- (Essence x 5) + (Willpower x 3) + Highest Virtue. (Tenative)

Thematics

Individuality: The Heroes are the Chosen of Nobody and have no past-life experiences associated with their Exaltations (And never will). They're individuals first and foremost, chosen from heroic mortals. They are often fiercely independent people. Autochthon designed them primarily as the watchmen of Creation, to ensure that the madness created by both God and Exalt would not occur again. By ensuring that they are individuals first and foremost, the Great Maker has created a group which all have different agendas and will question authority. He has also proofed them against the Yozi and Neverborn, making it impossible for them to learn Sorcery or Necromancy.

Problems: The Heroic Exalted are generally considered interlopers and meddlers by the powers that be, and will generally be killed or subverted where possible. Creation at large is unaware of the Heroic Exalted's origins.

Numbers: There are only 64 Heroic Exaltations in Creation. Heroic Exaltations function much like their Celestial Cousins, a given shard bonding with a mortal meeting some unknown criteria of excellency.

Other Titles: Champions of Man, Guardians, Watchers.

Charms

Excellencies: Heroes use the Solar version of the Ability Excellencies, though their dice adder limit is Attribute + Ability + Relevant Specialty.

Charms: Heroic Exalted have no Perfect Attacks or Defenses. It should be very difficult for a Heroic Exalted to specialize, instead generally having a handful of charms with multiple uses. Heroic Exalted might have a single Extra Action charm in their entire arsenal of charms, for example, but that single charm is applicable to many many different situations. Thus a Hero relies on developing Combos to specialize. A hypothetical Essence 6 charm for Melee or Dodge might make a normally inapplicable defense mode applicable again, but would do NOTHING else. In terms of efficiency, Heroic Exalted will generally spend a few more motes for the same effect a Solar would get. Yes, Moonshadow and Eclipses can learn the Heroic Charms, but why bother when most of their stuff is already better?

Necromancy: Heroic Exalted may not learn Necromancy. They do possess Occult Charms that function as a Counterspell for Necromancy one level lower than the Counterspell charm (thus, Terrestrial Countermagic wouldn't negate any Necromantic spells, while Solar Countermagic would only counter Labrynith Circle Necromancy).

Sorcery: Heroic Exalted may not learn Sorcery. They do possess Occult Charms that function as Counterspells, however.

Supernatural Martial Arts: Heroic Exalted learn Supernatural Martial Arts as a Solar.

Comments

Interesting - a very different take on these guys. However, they seem pretty... superstrong. Their Attributes go higher than anyone's, a powerful anima effect, no Limit mechanic, better Excellencies than anyone (including Solars), Solar-level Charms (I assume, given the Martial Arts notes) and there are as many of them as the Dragon-Blooded? These seem less like watchmen and more like super-armies - if this was an option in the past, why did Autochthon not make them then? - FrivYeti

Note that there are more than 10,000 Dragon-blooded; 10k is just the official number given by the Immaculate texts. It's mentioned that in the Shogunate-era and pre-Usurpation eras, there were over a million dragon-bloods. But you're right. It should be lower, probably a power of eight. In terms of the mechanicals you mention, yeah, I went overboard there. I've tried to fix them, though I feel that the die adder limits should remain given how hamstrung they're supposed to be in the Charm variety department.