Toram/HouseRules

What I would change if I were writing Exalted

These rules grow out of my experience playing in MetalFatigue's game, and many of them are swiped from his list. Be warned, this is a work in progress, and things may be put up here before I've fully thought them through.

• The Exalted Power Combat rules are in use.

• • Except for the Initiative and Minimum Damage changes.

• Convert character creation to just use XP.

• Appearance costs 1/2 the listed price

It's not nearly as useful as the other attributes.

• Adding a Virtue to a dice pool does not require spending temporary Willpower, and Virtues are rolled for temporary Virtue recovery each morning, in the same manner as Willpower.
• The cost of raising a virtue is reduced to 2xCurrent

The benefits of high Virtues are mostly compensated for by the drawbacks. This makes them a little more attractive.

• Each game morning, instead of rolling Conviction to regain temporary Willpower, you roll whatever your character's highest Virtue rating might be. It is possible to spend a temporary Willpower on this roll to get an automatic success.

There's no reason to make Conviction superior to the other virtues. Spending a Willpower on your roll to regain Willpower is only useful in rare circumstances

• The Dawn, Zenith and Night Caste (and corresponding Abyssal) anima powers are amended as follows:
  • Dawn: spend 5 motes to reduce wound penalties by permanent Essence and cause fear as per the listed anima power.
  • Zenith: cost to turn undead/demons is reduced to 5 motes.
  • Night: cost to mute senses and make tracking more difficult is reduced to 5 motes.

• The fourth through seventh dots of Linguistics grant two language families instead of one; the eighth and higher dots grant three language families per dot. Also, for the XP cost and training time of a specialty, you can buy an extra language family without increasing your Linguistics rating.

• Craft is treated similarly to Linguistics: instead of buying many different kinds of Craft, you know how to work in a certain number of media, and getting more dots of Craft increases your breadth as well as your skill in those media. You can use a medium you don't know at a -2 die penalty. Media are learned in exactly the same way as language families are learned for Linguistics (including the effects of the preceding rule). Craft Charms cannot generally be used to augment die rolls unless the character has actually learned the relevant Craft medium.

Since playing a handyman is less exciting than playing a master of all weapons, it should not cost more points. --MetalFatigue

• Martial arts is revised as follows:
  • A character must first purchase Martial Arts(General).
  • Using a Magical MA requires purchasing MA(Specific Form)
  • MA(Specific Terrestrial Form) requires purchasing the charm "Root of the Lotus Initiation", which requires MA(General) 5, Essence 3.
  • MA(Specific Celestial Form) requires purchasing the charm "Bulb of the Lotus Initiation", which requires MA(General) 6, Essence 4, and "Root of the Lotus Initiation". This replaces the canonical intiation charm pairs.
  • MA(Specific Sidereal Form) requires purchasing the charm "Flowering Lotus Initiation", which requires MA(General) 8, Essence 8, and "Bulb of the Lotus Initiation".
    • Terrestrial Exalted reduce the above MA and Essence requirements by one.
    • Celestial Exalted reduce the above MA and Essence requirements by three, and need not pay XP for "Root of the Lotus Initiation".
    • Sidereal Exalted reduce the above MA and Essence requirements by four, and need not pay XP for "Root of the Lotus Initiation" or "Bulb of the Lotus Initiation".
  • A character may not activate MA charms above the form charm of a style without first activating that form charm.
  • A character using a MA form charm may only make attacks using MA(That form).
  • A character using a MA form charm may not activate charms from Archery, Brawl, Melee, MA(Other than that form), Thrown or Dodge. Activating the MA form charm ends any such charms currently active.
  • If a MA form favors a thrown or archery weapon, it may be used with a Dex + MA(That form) roll.
  • Characters may roll Dex+MA(Any) as either a dodge or a parry action.
  • Favoring Martial Arts does not reduce the price of Martial Arts charms other than the initiation charms.

• Favoring Occult does not reduce the price of spells.

This is the price for having Sorcery able to produce effects that intrude into the territory of other Abilities.

• The essence cost of most spells with a lasting duration is committed.

The main weakness of Sorcery is that spells are slow to cast in combat, leaving the caster vulnerable. Spells with long durations circumvent that weakness. This change is intended to correct that loophole. Permanent spells do not commit their essence, nor do demon or elemental summonings.

• All sorcerous transportation spells have their rate of travel reduced to 50% of their published values.

As published, the easy availability of magical transportation makes the Ride tree nearly pointless. Even a novice Sorceror will know Stormwind Rider, which will allow him to quickly traverse the vast uninhabited distances of creation. This change is intended to make horse travel at least worth considering.

• Characters may have as many specialties as desired for any Ability, but cannot add more than their permanent Essence in specialty dice to any roll.

• Attack and defense rolls using the Brawl Ability are made using Strength+Brawl instead of Dexterity+Brawl.

It doesn't make sense to me why Brawl is even in the rules if it's not going to have any decent Charms. This rule makes Strength Increasing Exercise work as a persistent dice adder for Brawl, as well as increasing damage, which puts it almost on a level with Martial Arts (at low levels, anyway). --MetalFatigue

• The off-hand penalty is annulled. Dual Slaying Stance, since it no longer cancels the off-hand penalty, reduces multiple action penalties by 3 instead of 2.

If helmets are a cosmetic choice, so is fighting with two weapons. --MetalFatigue

• Piercing the Night's Veil Practice is reflexive, costs only 3 motes per scene instead of 5, and replaces Sensory Acuity Prana as the prerequisite for Owl-Eye Technique.

This keeps PtNVP from being a complete speedbump

• The Solar Medicine Charm tree has been replaced by the charms in MetalFatigue/SolarMedicine.

• Crack-Mending Technique fully repairs (including magic) one item light enough for the caster to lift (or Essence yards radius of a large item). It will only recreate missing matter if more than 50% of the original material is present.

• Incantation of Efficacious Restoration instantly and completely physically repairs any one item, but does not restore lost magic. The repairs will not extend more than Essence yards from the caster. It will only recreate missing matter if more than 50% of the original material is within that radius.

It seemed inappropriate that the epitome of the Solar Craft tree was inferior to a simple Terrestrial Spell. --Toram

• Triple-Distance Attack Technique triples the weapon's range for all purposes, not just for range penalties.

• There are permanent-duration Charms available to enhance a character's anima powers. The first tier of these Charms requires Essence 4+, at least four Caste abilities at 4+, and all Virtues at 2+. The details of specific Charms should be discussed with the Storyteller.

• Bulwark Stance is Instant and Reflexive. Its effect lasts until the end of the turn.

This allows it to be comboed, which keeps it from being completely useless once FFBS is obtained. --Toram

• Fivefold Bulwark Stance is Simple, and grants a number of free parry actions each turn equal to the Exalt's Essence.

• Heavenly Guardian Defense does not parry unparryable attacks. Its cost is changed to 5m (no WP).

See Discussions/HeavenlyGuardianDefence --Toram

• Flow Like Blood grants a number of free dodge actions each turn equal to the Exalt's Essence.

• The duration of Lightning Speed is Instant. Its effect lasts until the end of the turn, and affects both running and sprinting speeds.

• The duration of Monkey Leap Technique is Instant. Its effect lasts until the end of the turn,

• Fists of Iron Technique is Reflexive, not Supplemental.

• The cost of Foe-Vaulting Style is increased to 3 motes + 1 Willpower. It can be used more than once against a given opponent (assume that you're behind them before they have time to turn around). Also, it can be placed in a Combo with Charms of other Abilities. The cost of Flowing Evasion Assault is increased to 6 motes + 1 Willpower.

• Attacks from behind may be defended against with stunts as well as Charms.

• Defensive charms may be activated at the last moment at which they are applicable.

• The Magical Material bonus for artifact thrown weapons is identical to that for artifact archery weapons, except that bonuses to Range come in multiples of +10 yards instead of +50 yards (so orichalcum and jade grant +10 yards to Range, while moonsilver grants +20 yards).

• The distances between demesnes are approximately double from what is listed in Savant and Sorcerer: 8-10 miles apart on average. The prevalences of different Demesne levels are revised to the following: Level 1, 50%; Level 2, 25%; Level 3, 15%; Level 4, 8%; Level 5, 2%.

Otherwise, there's just too many of them. --Toram

There are still a whole damn lot, which was clearly the intention of the designer, but now the average Exalted Dynast has only 3 hearthstones instead of 12 (assuming that half the Demesnes on the Blessed Isle are tied up in the Realm's defense grid). --MetalFatigue

• Empty Stomach Fasting Meditation also eliminates the need for water, but has a minimum Endurance of 2. Ascetic Monk's Purification Discipline does not exist. Controlled Breathing Exercise does not require moving slowly. Interrogation Resisting Attitude is a Permanent effect that requires no motes.

These charms seemed underpowered. --Toram

• The roll for Irresistible Questioning Technique is affected by Ten Magistrate Eyes, but under no circumstances can the character benefit from more successes than her Manipulation + Investigation. The roll is made secretly by the Storyteller; the Exalted who invoked the Charm does not know how many questions the target is forced to answer truthfully.

• Reflexive charms may be added to a combo by paying the difference in the combos' XP cost.

Otherwise, people will delay buying combos until they have all the reflexives they'll ever want to put in them. It may be worth loosening the combo construction rules even more, but this would be a start. See more commentary in Discussions/ComboPeculiarities --Toram

• "Fire and Stones Strike" and similar effects which turn damage dice into autosuccesses do not affect 'ping' damage.

With the power combat rules in place, these effects makes ping damage abusively powerful; even one extra success on the hit roll will inflict 'Essence' levels of damage, regardless of the attack's strength or the target's soak. --Toram

• The Calendar Seasons are modified as follows:
  • Air: Winter hits its coldest in Resplendent Air.
  • Earth: Planting season.
  • Water: Rainy season.
  • Fire: Summer hits its hottest in Resplendent Fire.
  • Wood: Harvest season.
  • Calibration

The seasons listed in the book don't make sense when you try to map them to seasonal weather patterns.

• "World-Shaping Artistic Vision" is moved to the second-to-the-end position in the Sidereal Craft Tree. Multiple WSAVs cannot be applied to the same roll.

I also like the rules in Shataina/CastelessSorcery, and will probably use them, or something similar.