Enchantress/HouseRules

Heroic Mortals

Heroic Mortal character creation in my games usually differs slightly to that seen in the Exalted core rulebook, which clearly regards them and their capabilities as an afterthought. Most Storytellers adopt a common sense approach to designing mortals realistically. For players however, realistic isn't cost effective- specialties are prohibitively expensive compared to extremely high ability scores.

Lower Attributes and Abilities
The 5th dot of any attribute or ability reflects the pinnacle of mortal skill, thus when purchasing it at character Creation the cost is doubled.
More Specialties
Many Heroic Mortals specialise to overcome their limitations and still realise their goals. Two specialties may be purchased for one bonus point for all abilities, not just favoured.

Gods, Demons and Spirits

I don’t agree with spirits having standardised dice limits for excellencies, as with their other charms the circumstances and extent to which a spirit should be able to increase their dice pool in an ability should be unique to them. An outline of the system I use is bellow-
Lesser Spirits (Elementals, Minor Gods, First Circle Demons) - Essence.
Terrestrial Gods (City Fathers etc) - Ability + Specialty.
Powerful Gods (Directional War Gods, Celestial Incarna) Attribute + Ability
Some spirits associated with the Bureau of Nature have Attribute Excellencies like the Lunar Exalted, while those tied more closely to other traits (such as virtues) would use them. While uncommon some spirits have excellencies tied more directly to their purviews such as a forest spirit being literally stronger when her forest is in good health.