FrivYeti/SolarInsights

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The Five Supreme Rights

Solars learn to increase their mastery and power, their Insights allowing them to use greater amounts of Essence and their natural perfection to overwhelm their opponents.

Solar Insights cost 8 XP if Favoured, and 10 XP if not Favoured.

Supreme Champions's Mastery</b>

<b>Cost: None Mins: (Ability) 7, Essence 7, Type: Special
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: One Charm in this Ability of each Essence rating, from 1 to 6.

The true master of Essence does not need to create greater Charms. Instead, lesser Charms may serve in their place. With this Charm active, the character increases all of her ratings (Attributes, Abilities, Virtues, Willpower, and Essence) by 1 when calculating their effects upon Charms. This includes Charms that have a maximum Essence expenditure and Charms that provide a flat benefit based on these traits.

Supreme Arbiter's Co-Ordination</b>

<b>Cost: None Mins: (Ability) 7, Essence 7, Type: Special
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: One Charm in this Ability of each Essence rating, from 1 to 6.

As characters expand their understanding of Essence, they learn to combine their flows of Essence with ever-reducing effort. While they must still practice to transform themselves, they can do so with far greater ease. Once this Insight is purchased, the character need not spend 1 Willpower to activate a Combo containing only Charms of this Ability. If the character's Combo contains Charms of multiple Abilities, this Insight must be purchased for every Ability so contained for the Willpower cost to be negated. All other rules of Combos still apply, and the Combo is just as obvious to the viewer.

Supreme Mystic's Refinement</b>

<b>Cost: None Mins: (Ability) 8, Essence 8, Type: Special
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Supreme Champions's Mastery, Supreme Arbiter's Co-Ordination

There is an incredible amount of energy lying within a single mote, and characters with this Insight learn to access it more effectively. The character reduces the cost of all Charms of this Ability by 1 motes for every 5 motes spent on the Charm, rounding up (to a minimum of 1 mote). This stacks with multiple invocations of any given Charm.

Supreme Mendicant's Response</b>

<b>Cost: None Mins: (Ability) 9, Essence 9, Type: Special
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Supreme Mystic's Refinement

The character cannot be truly caught off-guard, for her Essence now flows with the ease of breath. The character may spend +1 mote to activate any Charm that she knows as a Flow Charm; that is, it can be activated as an inherent ability rather than a Charm and does not count as Charm activation for the character's action. This cost must be paid for each activation of each Charm, and cannot be reduced by any means.

Supreme Ruler's Perogative</b>

<b>Cost: None Mins: (Ability) 10, Essence 10, Type: Special
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Supreme Mendicant's Response

The Solar Exalted are the ultimate lords of Creation, and cannot be gainsayed without exceptional effort. No effect, including opposing rolls, increased difficulties, rolling botches, internal or external penalties may cause the character to have less than one net success on any rolls of this Ability. This effect may only be countered in two ways: A perfect effect of any sort overcomes this mastery, and a character opposing the Solar may spend 1 Willpower per roll to ignore this Insight's effects, with no maximum expenditure per scene.

Comment

For Supreme Mystic's Refinment - I assume you mean each purchase of the charm, rather than invocation? And is there a cap on the number of these that may be purchased for an ability? - TheHoverpope.

That is correct, and I have altered the text to be not stupid. As far as how many - they each require each other, so you can purchase all five, assuming you reach Essence 10. - FrivYeti

About Supreme Champion's Mastery and Supreme Mendicant's Response, are they intended to affect charms only of one ability per purchase? As worded, they currently don't specify such. I assume that's the intent, but you might want to clarify. - IanPrice

I'm a little concerned these are not as awesome as they could be. Cancel that. I'm a little concerned of two things in particular:

• None of these add mad successes. I'd expect more mad successes from Solars. Sure, the auto-perfect is nice, but below that, I'd expect bonus successes.
• Unlike the other two celestial exalt insights you posted, none of these seem to help the Solar in regard to Essence usage or more importantly, willpower. Since some higher Essence charms are easily 7m per use, and some combos can easily be 14+ motes, saving 1m per charm isn't that great - especially when others have fun things too. I'd think that Solars might have a bit stronger savings - something along the lines of 25% or 1m, whichever is greater.

-- GreenLantern

Solars save Willpower compared to the others by not having to spend it in Combos, which is huge; they can save their Willpower for their actual Charms and successes. However, in retrospect, I agree about the mote issue; I just didn't want to over-economize *couSIDEREAL MARTIAL ARTS SUTRASgh*. However, a 1 mote in 5 is probably a better choice. Supreme Champion's Mastery is an extra two dice or one success on Excellencies, and on anything that's providing (Trait) bonuses, so I think they're okay. The Insights aren't supposed to be as ultimate as Charms of that level might be, as that's the point. ;) - FrivYeti

Friv - I'm confused by your comment that Supreme Champion's Mastery will add an extra two dice or single success on Excellencies, as the way it's written, it does nothing of the sort. Instead, it merely allows you to get that high. With an Essence 7 Solar, it's not unreasonable to assume they've got a 14 Attribute+Ability pool, meaning that they can go to 28 dice, normally. This would allow them to go to 30 dice. At the same time, the cost for that is immense - 14 motes in the first case, 16 motes in the second. That's a metric ton of motes, and quite frankly, if you're using an Excellency to get that many dice, you deserve to lose the fight. Instead, get a higher-Essence charm (even 3-4 range) that gives you way more bang for your buck, such as something that doubles your pool, or adds 2*(Essence) or some such. I've never understood why anyone would think Solar Excellencies are a good idea after you hit a certain power level - they're just far too mote inefficient to ever really want to max them out. Sidereals, ironically, do much better, as they max out at +Essence, and then kick in Essence Auspicious to turn them all into auto-successes, getting far more average successes than a Solar for the same cost. (At Essence 7, it's 7 motes for the first excellency, then another few to drop the TN, and you're getting 21 dice, at an average of 14.7 successes (for a 2-point TN boost) and 16.8 (at a 3-point TN boost). That 3-point TN boost is only 3 motes, meaning a Sidereal gets 16.8 successes for 10 motes, while a Solar, with their 14-mote Excellency, gets only 14 successes. Even with your charm, the Solar can barely hit an average of 15 successes, and that takes 16 motes. Anyway, I'll stop rambling, and note that my goal here was not to show how uber Sidereals are (and in fact, you can easily point out that the Sidereal needs a combo). Instead, I note that my argument is that Solar Excellencies are too mote inefficient to make Supreme Champion's Mastery really that useful for Excellencies. I do note that it is an awesome charm for giving you the chance to have an effective 11 Willpower, and for having higher flat-rates, which make it good anyway. Still, I worry that these high-Essence Solars (and other Celestials, even) are too mote-inefficient.-- GreenLantern

Infinite (Ability) Mastery already exists to address the mote-ineffeciency of Solar excellencies in 2ed. It works really well in any situation that the mote inefficiency would actually matter (combat for example), though I admit that certain things (Craft?) don't make such obvious sense with it. Yet, those same things have you shedding motes in their instant-duration charms (a category including the Excellencies) which you can easily regain from normal respiration over the course of the project. Even social combat cares less than physical combat about this, since it's conceivable that enouch Social ticks might go by for an hour to pass in conversation - boom, Essence respiration. In War, bring Hearthstones; Solars win out.

But in normal physical combat, Infinite (Ability) Mastery pays for itself the third time you use it. Sure, you don't get to use your Excellencies as innate abilities if you use that, but then again who does that innate ability thing anyway? Let's see... Solars if they still pay... oh, and DBs can use the Third Excellency that way because it's reflexive. Combo it and like it. Then show that Sidereal who's boss, because when three rolls have to be made in the course of the combat, you pay 28m once to get your average 13.44 successes each, he pays 30 motes and 3 willpower just for his 16.8 successes each time. A high-Essence solar who can't weather three to five hits by two or three successes is a pretty lame duck. - IanPrice

I agree that the mote efficiency charm seems a bit naff. I have an alternate solution. Instead of all this "oh, how do we drop the costs without over economizing" lark, have you consdiered making their pools bigger, and making them respire faster, possibly get more regain from certain other sources? The issue here... Is that it's not ability based. You could give them an ability-only essencepool, which regains from stunts using that ability in addition to the normal stunt regain. If solars had a separate, 35m pool for each ability they liked, that might be... quite interesting ^_^
-- Darloth suggests some alternate possibilites for consideration

Hmm... that seems like it could get messy fast - keeping track of three mote pools is bad enough, but keeping track of 13? 28? Yikes. I'll have to decide how to beef up the mote-reduction effect more easily. - FrivYeti