Exalted 2.5 - Sidereals in Creation

[Sherwood]

I have tried to run this game before, it fizzled for lack of participation. I am hoping to give this another try.

The characters would all be Sidereals of moderate power using the Established Exalted rules from Dreams of the First Age with a few minor tweaks. Here is a reprint for you:

Attributes start out at 10/8/7, and you get 18 dots to split between your Favored and Auspicious Abilities, with another 28 dots spent as you wish.

You will get 20 dots in Backgrounds, and 14 dots in Colleges, with at least 7 in the Colleges associated with your Maiden. Also, you get 7 dots in Virtues, with starting Willpower is set at 5, and starting Essence is 4 before using any bonus points, which is 35.

Starting out you'll have 30 Charms. In addition to this, you can select any single Terrestrial or Celestial Martial Art style for FREE with the requirement that you have a Sidereal Martial Art up to at least the Form Charm, if not higher. I want to see what people can do with the SMAs, and so far, no game I have ever seen has ever tapped into them at all.

This is going to be a PbP game, and I would like to see at least a post a week from the players.

If you would be interested, let me know!

 

[JayTee]

Oh hey Sherwood, mind if I tag along?

 

[Sherwood]

Sure! I would like another couple of players for this, so if you know anyone that would be a good fit and will keep up with the posting rate, let them know.

Any questions that you have about the game?

 

[JayTee]

I'll reach out to a few people and see what I can find.

As for questions, I have two. First, are you sure you want to use Sidereal Martial Arts? They're horribly broken and overpowered. A homebrew rewrite of them I have access to would be better if they're a fixture of the game.

Also, are we having the game set in the First Age or standard Creation?

 

[Sherwood]

Yes, as scary as they are, I do want to see what a party of Siddies can do with SMAs. Fear what may come!

This is going to be a game in the standard Creation setting, not First Age.

 

[Sherwood]

I might be willing to consider any tweaks of the SMAs, but I'd want to see them first.

 

[JayTee]

Here's a rewrite I like, The canon Martial Arts are all horrifically overpowered, to the point where they break the game in very unpleasant ways. I strongly suggest we use these instead.

 

[Sherwood]

Here's a rewrite I like, The canon Martial Arts are all horrifically overpowered, to the point where they break the game in very unpleasant ways. I strongly suggest we use these instead.

Thanks for the link. Lets go ahead and use these.

 

[Sherwood]

JayTee , do you know if there is any info on the styles in the book Glories of the Most High for the Maidens? I'd like to be able to include them, but if they are overpowered compared to the rewrite, it wouldn't be fair to the others not using them.

 

[JayTee]

The only style mentioned in Glories: Maidens is Sapphire Veil of Passion style, which if memory serves is a little wonky, but otherwise decently balanced. All other styles are in Scroll of the Monk, which is an awful book and 90% of it's content should be expunged from the game line.

 

[Psychie]

I might be interested in an Exalted game that doesn't die off after the first few posts. Too many games are doing that lately.

 

[Sherwood]

I understand the sentiment. I promise to do my best to keep this one running for a while.

 

[Psychie]

I just wish to be clear about the Charms: We get 30 Charms plus a complete CMA? What about the SMA? Do we get those for free, too?

 

[Sherwood]

Yes, it is 30 plus the CMA, and no, the Charms you get of the SMA do not come free. With all the Charms you are getting, you should be able to afford it well enough.

 

[Psychie]

Good deal. I'll brush the dust off of my MOEP: Sidereals and start working on a character tomorrow.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

Am gonna be a Sidereal! A Chosen of Battles!

 

[Psychie]

I'm going with a Chosen of Serenity.

 

[Sherwood]

Forgot to add a house rule that I always use with Exalted. When you purchase a Sorcery Charm, you get a spell of that level for free. Same goes for Necromancy.

 

[JayTee]

Secrets, for me.

What about the classic Ox-Body rule?

 

[Sherwood]

Secrets, for me.

What about the classic Ox-Body rule?

Do you mean the one where you get a -0 and a -2 health level, to make up for the fact that the Sidereal Ox Body is the worst in all of the books? Sure. We can do that.

 

[JayTee]

The one I was thinking of was a free ox body charm per dot of essence, same with the free excellency rule. They're important charms that make it really hard to function, but are also really boring and uninteresting, so people don't like having to be forced to buy them. Charm tax, basically.

 

[Sherwood]

I hadn't heard about that, but I can work with it. I will allow the free Ox-Body with every point of Essence. I'll ponder the free excellency rule.

 

[JayTee]

I'm a big advocate of the free excellency rule. It basically frees you up to spend your XP on cool charms you'll enjoy using, rather on boring things you need in order to be functional. 3e also embraced this philosophy, so it has to have some merit.

 

[Psychie]

How would that work? Would we get any Excellency we wanted for free? That would certainly free up a bunch of Charms.

 

[JayTee]

More or less, it's to let you focus on building up all the cool things you can do.