Miedvied/BodyEnhancementCharms

Ox-Body Technique; remains the same. At least this charm rocks.

Crouching Tiger and Moonsilver Monkey become one charm. Duration extended to Essence + Charisma hours. Costs 4m1w when enhancing strength, 6m1w when enhancing dexterity.

Regaining Breath Exercise, new prereq charm is Finding the Spirit's Shape. Require Int 3, Ess 2. Increase essence regeneration as if carrying a hearthstone of Intelligence level (if not carrying a hearthstone), or by one level (if carrying a hearthstone), whichever result is greater.

Breath-Drinking Executioner. Require Int 4, Ess 3. Duration: Permanent. Every time the lunar successfully kills someone, regain 4 motes of essence.

Predator Grace Method - Buy auto-sxx on all athletics rolls using dexterity, not just those relating to grace. (If you're using Dex, you're relying on grace, in other words.)

Panther Stride Stance + Flying Tiger Technique + Cat Falling Attitude - become one charm. Essentially, "Feline Survival Method."

Tree Dwelling Jaguar Claws and Cat Paw Climbing Style become one charm.

Former Tree Height / Charm Count: 6 / 11 New Tree Height / Charm Count: 3 / 8

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Comments

Hi there! I figure it's okay to comment?

Well, I understand the major reason for why you wish to do this overhaul. I think somethings go too far. BDE as you have written makes them on par or more powerful than Abyssals in getting essence from kills. I don't find that appropriate. Furthermore, The duration on CTE and MME is too long. Assume that you have still two charms, and make them scenelong, Lunars would still be better than anyone else in temporary increasing attributes. I read these charms yesterday, and was a bit surprised how powerful they were. Still you want them to be even better. Also, you try to shorten an already relatively short tree. Why? I don't mean to be too negative on you, but the problems you are referring to are less pronounced in this tree, no?

Comments are always welcome. I live for them. As for BDE; the main difference is that Abyssals are much more effective killers than Lunars versus large amounts of opponents - see Glorious Carnage Typhoon versus the Lunar's Best Multiple Action Charm. GCT will let an Abyssal wipe out an entire army; the best Lunar extra action will let them take up to perm ess. actions, not to exceed init/3. Lunars also have a smaller essence pool, with almost no scene-length charms; they'll be pumping out more essence than Abyssals, and killing less people to get the ability to recover it. Abyssals also recover essence with very easy to buy into charms, on top of the essence-draining bonuses of soulsteel; Lunars have almost no other ways of regaining essence in the middle of a scene. So, taken overall, no, I don't think this makes Lunars better at essence regeneration than Abyssals - not by a very long stretch of the imagination. Miedvied

As for increasing attributes... yes, this would make Lunars better than anyone else at doing it. They're supposed to be the best at doing it, though, so apparently I achieved my goal. CTE and MME duration is now longer, but a) Big essence commitment for a simple attribute boost, which they get more effectively via DBT, and b) Note that I made them one charm. This limits how much you can raise your total attributes by about half. ( I should make a full write-up of the combined charm.) As for how powerful they are... you do realize that Lunars don't get ability boosting charms, and the stat-boosting charms take upwards of 15 rounds to activate, and then only last a handful of rounds? As written, they're great if you have the time to pump up for a quick duel, but are useless in actual combat. They cost 15 xp a pop; tell me, please tell me, why any Lunar should spend 30 experience points just to be more effective for formalized duels and nothing else? Miedvied

As for shortening a short tree, ... it's huge at the experience costs noted. Sidereals have the same exp costs; they have much shorter trees, and much more potent charms. Dragon-bloods have similar exp costs; they have tiny</> trees, which are very effective. The only exalts with charm trees even close to the Lunars in height and size are the Solars, and the Solars get more efficient charms at half the exp. Miedvied

On a more general tone I. (You may want to move this comment elsewhere). The Lunar charms are by far the most general charms there is. Why do you merge them so they become even more general? Wouldn't it be more clever to simply remove a lot of charms?

They're general? Not by a long shot. CTE and MME are duel-only charms, due to their massive activation time and short duration. Panther Stride Stance and the charms that cascade from it are <i>three version of the same charm at varying levels of efficiency. That's not exactly utilitarian. Cat Climbing Paw's pretty specific. The specificity rises in the combat trees; we get stupid shit like Tyrant Lizard Strike (1mote/die to raise your attack pool), followed by Deadly Claw Blow (2 motes/sxx to buy suxx in any unarmed combat roll) and then Bear Embrace Method (1mote/die in any wrestling-related pool.). TLS is the same as Bear Embrace Method. BEM is Tyrant Lizard Strike, with a specification of "wrestling only." Oh, yes, very good, general charms. Then we have Tentacle Spear Strike which essentially is Monkey Paw Style, except with a "tentacle" image in your head instead of a "hand" image in your head, and neither one is worth 15 xp. Oh, I can go on. And I will go on, on the subsequent charm pages. Miedvied

Tone II. Doing this creates a problem in scaling. There are "weak", "strong" and "superpowerful" Lunars in Creation. How do you make a clear distinction between the weak and the strong in terms of XP? The difference becomes smaller from your changes, yes? Is that a good thing? I am not so sure.... Clebo

Exalted are not rated by XP. They're rated by their position in the world, their contacts, their allies, their possession of special relationships and artifacts. A 300 xp Dawn-caste can take on the 1500+ xp Chejop Kajak. A circle of 300 xp solars is gauranteed to defeat him. Except, you know... he's far more powerful than they, because you don't measure someone by personal power; he happens to lead the largest faction of Sidereals in Creation, has ties to all the greatest Gods in Yu-Shan, and can direct the entire Dynasty against his foes. The same goes for Lunars in Creation; not to mention you distinguish your "superpowerful" lunars from your "weak" lunars in that your superpowerful lunars are Ess 7+, and they have the Ess 7+ versions of these charms. You have to keep in mind that White Wolf simply hasn't published any superpowerful charms for anyone but Sidereals, and the couple of Solar super-charms in the castebooks. But if you take the Sid MA's and Solar high-essence combat charms as hints of what the Lunar high-essence level potency should be, you'll see just where the superpowerful lunars stand. Miedvied