FrivYeti/DBSurvival

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Dragon Attunement Method

 Cost: None
 Duration: Permanent
 Type: Special
 Minimum Survival: 1
 Minimum Essence: 2
 Prerequisite Charms: None

Sometimes, Dragon-Blooded of all breedings find the need to use more Essence than usual. To this end, this Cham was developed, a weaker version of that practiced by the Celestial Exalted. When this Charm is purchased, it provides a special Essence pool, "Elemental Essence". This pool is equal to 5 motes for every time this Charm is purchased. Spending it counts as spending peripheral Essence, and it may only be spent on Charms of the character's elemental aspect. Furthermore, it can only be recharged by spending time in close proximity to the character's Essence. If the character meditates in such conditions, she may recover up to (the number of times that this Charm has been purchased) in motes per hour, out of her normal mote recovery. This pool may not be used to attune artifacts.
Dragon-Blooded may purchase this Charm up to a number of times equal to their permanent Essence.

Comments

Rock. I was hoping someone would something like this. :D - ScrambledValkyrie

I like a lot of the restrictions, and the color. The only thing I'dd add is something like one of these:

• These motes, if used to attune artifacts, can only be used to attune artifacts of the appropriate Jade type
• These motes may not be used to attune artifacts

As some of the DB's biggest themes (to me, at least) is their small pools, their focus on their element, and their relatively large artifact loadout for their pools, this charm strikes me as almost certainly devoted to artifacts. Especially considering how long it takes to fill, it just seems to easy to ignore the 'restrictions' on it and just use it for commitment. My gut, then, is to make it less useful for such a purpose, forcing DB's to use it transiently, and use their normal pool for commitment. -- GregLink, always putting the Terrestrials down

Not a bad point (I seem to remember some suggestion that the Abyssal dealio should do that. Ka-fixed! - FrivYeti

Well, I'm a big fan of the theory that the Solar and Abyssal pools (at least) are fairly all-purpose. They kindof stomp over everything else, they trump adversity, and they're awesome. In addition, the Solar essence problem isn't small pools, it's burning through the stuff like water. It's a cake-walk to burn 10m per turn, on average, as a Solar. Where the 10m provided by the Abyssal or Solar equivalent can be burned through in less than a round by such a creature, they'd last forever for the essence-conserving DB's. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that while I don't think DB's should be able to attune with these pools, I'm all for it for the Celestial Exalts, who, in general, get more presents at Christmas. -- GregLink

I actually object not only to this Charm, but the Sidereal, Lunar and the constantly-written Solar version of this Charm. Abyssals deserve it for being vampires, but no one else really has a "feel" that goes for a pool-expanding Charm. There are ways to create effects similar to increased pool without just giving someone more motes with a limit on how they regain it and how it can be spent. Since I highly encourage the thematic and mechanical seperation of the various splats, just making minor changes as you port this Charm from splat to splat really bothers me.
Why not have the DBs be able to power a single jade artifact at a time without burning motes? Sidereals are able to invoke a single scene-long charm without committing its cost by asking Heaven for a boon and Lunars....are screwed as normal. Maybe just hand Solars some better Essence Regeneration then anyone else has. But don't just hand out expanded pools. It's boring. - Telgar

The reason for expanded pools (for me, at least), are the following:

1. The Abyssals were the last of the five major splats to come out. The Alchemicals, the only Exalt-type to be released after the Abyssals, also have a Charm that increases their peripheral Essence pool (in their case, by taking a mote out of their personal).
2. Nephipal has specifically suggested a Solar Essence pool increaser that recharges at noon as a permanent Charm that should exist. On top of that, he's written Charms for Second Edition.

I will wager that, as Second Edition books come out, each of the Exalt types is going to have a Charm like this, rendering my own Charms obsolete. (Also, I take offense to the Lunar comment.) - FrivYeti

Yeah, Neph's writing of the Ex2 Charms is another reason I expect very little good to come from the new edition. He's horrible at creative charm writing. Oh, he can crank out mechanics that work well but there's not any brilliance or originality in his Charms. I don't hate them, but they don't stand up and say "I AM BEING COOL!" either.
So, basically I don't consider "Neph said there should be charms like this" a good reason to write Charms that reduce the wonderful thematic and mechanical distinctions between the splats. We've always known Alchies would have a Charm like that because they *need* one due to their Charm structure and design. Without it they'd be weakned overall. Abyssals, equally, we always knew they ate people for Essence. It's part of their thing. But the other three, er four, splats don't eat people (at least not for motes) and they don't have such huge committments. They need to handle their Essence troubles other ways. - Telgar

I find Neph's Charms to be brilliantly written and thematic, so I guess we're coming at this from different angles. Thanks for the comments, regardless. - FrivYeti

Gonna have to go with Friv on this one as well. (No offense meant to Telgar, either, of course). I've never cared which author writes anything, as someone at WW says it's ok, and to me, that's enough. I do agree, though, that color is important, hence the change to the Sidereal version that Friv and I worked out the other day. I'd suggest (not only to you, but to everyone) that it's always best to leave comments with not only negatives, but positive suggestions. I really like the suggestion you had regarding commitment (Endurance, or Craft, perhaps?) for the DB version, but I think other suggestions are positive too. -- GregLink

The thing to remember is that Abyssals are theoretically supposed to be about reducing dice pools, eroding others, but they get dice adders, just like Solars. So why not turn this about? Solars getting an appropriately-themed Pool enlarger? I admit I'd prefer a regeneration charm and that comment about it coming from stunts is brilliant! But that doesn't mean that I'm above a little "eye-for-an-eye" to make sure that nobody infringes on the Solar Schtick of being better at doing everything. The Neph comment doesn't hold water for me. WW has always had the coolest ideas combined with the sloppiest editing team in the industry, so meh. -- JadeSerpent

Personally, I like the idea of larger essence pools... of course, said exalt might have a charm that works only for attunement, which would be all that a DB with ALOT of artifacts would want. ~ haku

I'm not really up on how balanced this would be, but I'll throw it out there anyway. You could have 2 versions of this charm, one that can only be used on charms of the DB's element, and one that can only be used to attune artifacts of the DB's element. It would be similar to how Ox-Body charms work. Qzujak49

After some thinking, it suddenly occured to me that I was coming at this from completely the wrong angle. Solars and Abyssals solve their problems by throwing power at it; hence the mote enhancer. Dragon-Bloods do it by improving their elemental connection. They already have a mote increaser: Breeding.
New plan: Whenever a Dragon-Blooded raises their Essence, if their Breeding is lower than or equal to their Essence, they may choose to immediately purchase increased Breeding. This may raise Breeding above 5. Breeding 6 or above increases the chance of a child Exalting by a further one, adds +2 personal and +3 peripheral Essence per point, and reduces both the cost to activate anima powers and the Peripheral threshold for anima development by 1. I'll flesh out and further expand this after DB2e comes out. - FrivYeti