SJE/CampaignHouseRules
Campaign House Rules
In general the game will progress as 1 session = 1 day of game time
As a result training times are going to be mostly disregarded. Only if something very new & complicated was being learnt would I ask for a few days training before the advancement was gained.
Regarding experience- I'll award roughly 2-5 xp per session for turning up, roleplaying, entertainment, drama and panache. If you are responsible for closing one of the cases on the ChalkBoard, then everyone directly involved gets a bonus story award of XP. In short, closing cases means XP!
Exalts can have one free combo as a signature move. They can upgrade this signature combo with new Charms if they pay a flat rate of 3 xp for each new Charm added or replaced. This applies to NPC's as well as PC's.
We will be using the Classic combat system as mortals and potentially switch to Power Combat when/if everyone Exalts.
"Finish Him!" rule. In combat, no one blow is mighty enough to kill an Exalt outright. Instead, damage stops at Incapacitated- to kill an Exalt, you need to make a final coup de grace on the Incapicitated Exalt as another action. The purpose of this house rule is to stop accidental deaths of PC's, and add drama and action as other PC's try to rescue their downed comrade.
Raksha dont exist in my game- its still the Fae from Scavenger Sons. God-Blooded exist but not the other halfcastes or ghost blooded.
Watch members get a free dot in Backing and Resources to represent their job. Characters are created as Heroic mortals from p.103 from the Corebook with one Favoured Ability.
Dreaming Pearl Courtesean Form gives you a limited (Essence no. of parries), destructible (non-combat props are ruined unless 3m spent on Lethal Fan Attack to ‘harden’ them) persistent parry equal to your Martial Arts pool. That is about on par with Air Dragon Form.
We are using Power Combat, but all weapon speeds have been halved (rounding up). This is to lessen the effect of reach.
Everyone also gets one free Dodge or Parry per round at full dice pool. This is to allow characters to take a dice action, avoid harm and move in a round- for a more cinematic game.
Lunar Charms- Essentially, any timing element (about using the charm before or after your initiative) will be ignored and the charm made applicable in all time states.
2nd End House rule- Dawn and Dusk caste get +2DV irregardless of opponents valour when anima flares.
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I am intriguted by the "Finish Him!" rule. Is it something new you're trying out, or is it a tried and tested method that improves the enjoyability of your game? ~ Andrew02
Its inspired by Kasumis house rule | here- and basically exists because non-combat characters can be caught up in fights far too easily. One botched Dodge roll and a low Soak PC could be looking at 20 dice of damage coming their way- easily enough to kill. And with no easy resurrection, thats a whole pain in the ass to introduce a new character into the game. So to avoid that and give the non-combat PC's some survivability (plus villains too) then the rule serves its purpose. Plus it adds drama as if the PC is downed in one round, and the rest must scramble to get them away from the bad guys before they can finish her off! SJE
We also use a similar rule in our games. It's quite reasonable in that it really allows the ST to do what they will, without worrying if the super-massive death attack is going to totally obliterate the heroes or not. The hardest part, sometimes, is figuring out the in-game behaviour of NPC's, given this rule. Obviously, if all Exalts don't die unless you mutilate them, mutilating a fallen foe will be commonplace. On the other hand, if it's just the PC's that benefit from this, how many 'close calls' are gonna happen before it lessens the feel of the game, because since NPC's don't know to mutilate you, you keep living - almost as if you had a huge resistance/endurance charm. - GregLink
Exalts are creatures for combat. That was their original purpose. The gods created exalts to kick the junk out of the Primordials. In the world of exalted, if an exalt, god blood, spirit, demon, ghost, or even a mortal does not take the steps to learn how to fight, that is their mistake. It is a world of fighting. I am not saying a character has to be focused on combat. Not every character is a Dawn after all. But every character should be able to defend themselves and survive. I would much rather take all the charms I have for brawl, dodge, endurance, and resistance and make them into other cool charms involving any other ability. My Zenith would then die when the next set of thieves cornered him on some high way, but at least my charms would be in lore or something. You need combat charms. It is every players decision on whether or not to buy the charms. If they choose poorly, the character dies. I very much agree with GregLink, this kind of rule lessens the feel of the game. Real drama comes from the thought that their characters can be killed, that the long bonds the characters make with eachother are now torn because of death and loss. The surving characters go through emotional anguish, depression, grief, anger, revenege, forgiveness. That is drama. Not, "Oh look, Uka the Boar just gored you in half, but your still alive some how, lets get out of here and ice our injuries." It is the thought that Uka can destroy you that builds drama. It creates the thought of, "lets not and say we did", it creates doubt, fear, and uncertainty. Knowing your going to survive, most likely anyway because of a mechanic just takes the wind out of my sails, IMHO. [Madoka]
- Uh, are you saying that the only possible source of drama is fear of character death? Because that's stupid. - willows
- Now, characthers don't usually know this rule exists and shouldn't act like it. Thus I think mutilating fallen foes should be rare. Also, there should generally be a reason for survival, like the characther is recovered by their allies, or something. Also, without it you have the problem that it is pretty easy to kill characthers and it may be difficult to withdraw from combat in many cases. (Why should the enemy not pursue if they are winning?). Seems like a good idea to me. Besides, this doesn't prevent you from dying, this just prevents you from dying in a stupid way. If people flub the rescue during an execution, your still dead. You just need to use a little common sense.
So how about this one? Once a character goes below Incap., they're "dying". A dying character can only be saved by external influence, as even their permanent and reflexive charms are no longer able to be activated. To prevent someone from dying requires an extended Int+Medicine roll, once per round, with a combined number of successes equal to the number of damage dice rolled in the attack that felled him (and any subsequent attacks), less the number of health successes needed to drop the victim to incap in the first place. A character is considered "dying" for only his Stamina in rounds, after which, he's dead (Jim). If a character is successfully prevented from dying, change all damage received to aggravated, and leave the victim at Incapacitated. (This prevents magical healing effects from working well at all) - Just an idea, and it still leaves drama, and can still be tough to save someone. It obliviates the need for mutilation, but if you keep mutilating the body, the Int+Medicine roll gets real bad, real quick, as it's damage dice you must compensate for, not damage successes. In addition, once you get back up, you're out of commission for like 6 months, which brings back in that feeling of helplessness that some seem to like. - GregLink
- In context of the other houserules, I don't think that this will work at all. - willows
I like the idea behind the "Finish Him!" rule. I'm not sure that you will actually see mutilation of the bodies in combat (or indeed any in combat change of behavior), even if it is known IC that sometimes Exalts survive massive trauma, are left for dead, and actually recover. The fact that people can does in fact seem very in genre (both for Anime and epics). I would move that in combat, you have more important things to do than stab the person you downed last turn some more, like stab their friends so they don't do the same to you, so I don't think you'd see change there, except from real bastards of enemies. I guess one thing you might see is an increased willingness amongst PCs to fight on even after several of their group are "dead", because they don't want to abandon potentially living comrades in their enemies clutches. After combat, whoever is in control of the battlefield (as usual) can search the bodies, and potentially have to deliever a coup de grace, which is hardly mutilation, and is trivial in non-combat time. I'm not sure it really lessens the drama that much, and I don't think it's unfair to combat PCs as compared to non-combat PCs. Any PC who is "killed" still have to sit the fight out (and potentially be captured/killed after the fight) and so people not suited to fighting will still try to avoid combat, it's just that if they are caught in it, they're not totally screwed long term (probably). Conversely, the combat happy PCs are more willing to take risks, to attack the bad guy etc., because they won't die permenantly. Or at least that's how it worked in Adventure!, when surviving death was merely a matter of not being proven dead.
Greglink I'm not sure your houserule is that appropriate to this game, or indeed to many others. This game seems to run on a 'one session is one day' timeline, so being out for weeks with Agg damage all the way along your health track ... the chracter might as well be dead. In most of the other games I know, the same would be true, or it would be no issue. Either it would take the charcter out for a couple of months gametime, which might as well take them from the game, or they'll have Agg healing charms and it's just an annoyance and so seems a little petty. - Kraken
- Yeah, I had forgotten about the whole '1 day = 1 day' thing. You would be out for nearly ever in such a situation. I suppose that makes healing times /far/ more important. Also, for sake of protecting myself, note that the above suggestion (Int+Medicine 'dying' thing) isn't actually a rule in my games, it was merely a top-of-the-head thought. My games actually use the thing that started this conversation, that you can't go be hit 'through' Incap, that you must stop there, then have the coup de grace applied. In conclusion "Yeah, the healing time thing I proposed would stink, but perhaps the idea of 'dying' is still a happy middle ground we can agree on". - GregLink
We use a slightly different concept to avoid accidental player death: an additional charm called Delay of the Inevitable, which works sort of like Ox-Body, but gives extra Incapacitated levels. In some campaigns, I'd give every player this charm for free. - Wordman
