Revised Spells

by Toram

Exalted is a great game, but there are some aspects of it that bug me. One of those aspects is that there are 25 abilities, but two of them (Occult and Martial Arts) get about 80% of the page space. They're also not balanced with respect to the other abilities, in that Spells and Martial Arts Charms can have effects that intrude on the domain of other abilities. This creates an incentive for characters to focus strongly on those two abilities to the exclusion of others.

An oft-cited reply this line of reasoning is that spells are flashier and cost more motes and time than charms. While often true, this is only a factor for combat spells; in noncombat time, there's nothing to stop an Exalt from going somewhere private for a while to cast their spells.

As an example, Bo3C contained the spell Incantation of Efficacious Restoration. which, as written, was far superior to the ultimate Solar Craft Charm, Crack-Mending technique, despite costing far less XP to reach. This effectively removed any incentive to purchase that charm. WW may have recognized this error, as that spell was not reprinted in Savant & Sorcerer.

Another example lies in transportation spells. Stormwind Rider is a very common Terrestrial Circle spell which, in my estimation, eliminates almost all of the need to purchase Ride charms. It will take the caster and a modest amount of cargo or passengers to a desired destination at great speed. Why spend a bunch of XP climbing the Ride tree when you can just use this spell instead?

A final difference is that canonically, essence motes paid for spellcasting are not committed. This tilts the field yet further in favor of spells.

So, with the above rationale in mind, I'm writing this page in an attempt to adjust the published spells in ways that will balance them more fairly vis-a-vis charms.