[2e] Essence 4 PC

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illenvillen23

New Member
I'm a new story teller and one of my PCs just made a solar exalt character with 4 essence.


How powerful is this PC going to be? I want to present a challenge to them so I was wondering what the best way to do that for this character.
 
Well, for starters, if this is a fresh character than he had to take some flaws to get enough bonus points for Essence 4.  Essence 3 is usually where most starting level characters will be, but at the sacrifice of an extra charm or a broader spectrum of backgrounds/abilities/attributes when compared to a starting Essence 2.  


How powerful will he be?  Well, he probably won't have more than his starting allotment of Charms (if it IS a new character).  But, he will have a significantly higher Essence pool, and will have access to stronger charms (and probably took a few of them).  But, Essence is a 'moderate' gauge of how potent this character will be.  Ultimately, it will break down to where his charms were spent, and what he did with his character.  If you're interested in making sure it's challenging, he will most likely be setting the bar for the group.  But, just because he went with Essence 4, doesn't mean he'll be a total powerhouse.  He may have gone for Sorcery, or Social Combat.  


Best thing, is look over the character, and compare it to the other characters.  Throw them up against some moderate obstacles at first (like say a Realm patrol), nothing too potent.  Get a feel for how fast they dispatch adversaries, or win social combats, etc.  Then increase the difficulty steadily until you find a good baseline.  Just remember that as the group gains XP, they'll eventually end up evening out (as no player wants to be left behind and feeling useless).
 
Flyck said:
Well, for starters, if this is a fresh character than he had to take some flaws to get enough bonus points for Essence 4.  
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Wrong. Solars and sidereals can perfectly reach essence 4 without taking a single flaw, Abyssals can, too. In second edition only solars can so far, because neither sidereals nor abyssals got their manual yet.


But to the real question at hand. What can you expect as a storyteller?


Usually a very weak character. With essence 4 you have one bonus point left. That means, you can only have one ability at 4, none at five. This effectively prevents that character from learning a lot of good essence 3 charms which need an ability of five. For example fivefold bulwark stance, wyld shaping technique, Crack Mending Technique, Flow like Blood... just to name a few examples. So you see, Essence 4 is quite limiting his capabilities by denying him an ability at 5.


Furthermore, without bonus points to raise virtues/willpower he will not have an essence pool as large as you might expect. Most of the time investing some points into virtues will make you last longer, give you higher willpower and more dice when channeling virtues. So no big advantage here.


The only one thing for which essence 4 is really "useful" at character creation is celestial circle sorcery. That is one of the few essence 4 ability 4 charms in game and perhaps the only one with which you could justify taking essence 4 for.


Overall, if you friend is not going to play a sorceror, talk him out of it or he will end up with a character who is far weaker than his friends at the beginning. And even if he is going to play a sorceror... make clear that he is probably in for a very rough ride in the beginning of the game.
 
Raising Essence costs 8 BP and Solars begin with 15 BP, don't they?


And doesn't the CC process explicitly prohibit starting with Essence above 3, too?
 
Raising Essence costs 8 BP and Solars begin with 15 BP, don't they?
And doesn't the CC process explicitly prohibit starting with Essence above 3, too?
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Both wrong. See corerules for details.
 
In 1ed, I wrote up a Solar with an Essence 4, and with a few flaws, I was able to purchase a Archery charm from the Dawn castebook (forget the name at the moment) that for 10 motes, you create essence arrows for the entire scene.  I never had to worry about ammo, and could pick and choose what kind of arrow to make to maximise damage on the target.  The character was specialized in Archery, but he was a very capable character.  Don't make the assumption that starting out with an Essence 4 is going to limit what he can do.  Another thing to keep in mind is the cost in xp to buy new charms and raise abilities is a lot less than banking up points to get that 4th dot of Essence.  He may have to depend on the other characters to help him out in a fight, but that won't last long.


If he is going for Celestial circle spells, there is the background that gives you extra spells starting out.  For the cost of a few flaws, he now has five spells from either the Celestial or Terrestrial circles to choose from.


Don't panick at the thought of a Essence 4 character, but be aware of what may be on the table.


Heck, if you are using the Cult of the Illuminated rules, a Solar can start with five dots in Essence.  Just be careful.
 
*points at the big "2e" in the charm title*


Now did you say anything that was viable in the second edition without using houserules which the OP surely would have stated if he was using some? No? Thought so.
 
Safim said:
Wrong. Solars and sidereals can perfectly reach essence 4 without taking a single flaw, Abyssals can, too. In second edition only solars can so far, because neither sidereals nor abyssals got their manual yet.
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Huh, good call.  I too was thinking Essence required higher bonus points than 7.  Hmm...  


Although I will agree, spending the vast majority of your BPs on just increasing your Essence to 4, may (note, MAY) leave you a bit lacking.
 
Like I pointed out above, after a lot of storytelling I can say that essence 4 solars most of the time find very few charms to get because a lot of charms are essence 4 and ability 5 or essence 3 and ability 5 which is simply a no go in the second edition, because there are no flaws to get more bonus points.


A celestial circle sorceror is the only thing I can think of really.


*shrug* Anyway, you clearly get the most powerful chars when you max out abilities, virtues and get a lot of good basic charms. From my experience the characters which develop best during a campaign are those who start with a lot of excellencies, because lets be honest, you have a few ideas at character creation, but in the end the choice of charms will be dictated by the events in the campaign, so remaining flexible is never a bad idea.
 
I agree with Safim here. Unless they has a specific need of Essence 4 for the concept, such as for a starting Celestial Circle Sorceror, then its likely unwise. The bonus points are likely better spent elsewhere...especially abilities, specialties and virtues. A few starting Celestial Sorcerors I've seen have reliably had less essence than their virtuous Essence 2 and 3 companions...who also had more abilities. A Celestial Sorceror or a Labrynth necromancer concept however will require such at chargen. Usually though, if Sorceror or Necromancer is a major part of your concept, you can still get by just fine with Terrestrial Circle Sorcery or Shadowland Circle Necromancy to start, and learning the next level in game.
 
Thanks..I was just assuming he was trying to make a powerhouse character or something. But from what I've read and your comments here I know that if he is trying this its a most likely a foolhardy choice. Thanks to all who answered.
 
illenvillen23 said:
Thanks..I was just assuming he was trying to make a powerhouse character or something. But from what I've read and your comments here I know that if he is trying this its a most likely a foolhardy choice. Thanks to all who answered.
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Oh, he might be trying to make a powerhouse. I've seen players that made the same assumption and that was why they made the choice to have a 4 Essence early...they also quickly found that the 2 and 3 Essence types had them outclassed.
 
Much also depends on how/if you use training times in your campaign. Not having abilities at at five will be easily overcome once the PC gets a small bit of xp, because favored and caste abilities don't require training time to improve, at least going by the book. Likewise with virtues and willpower.


Learning charms to back the new 5 dot abilities, again by the book, will take a fraction of the training time needed to move Essence from 3 to 4 (112 days) in game.


Assuming this is why your PC is doing this, he will be weaker to start, but will probably reach "mid level" ahead of your other players, although not by much.


I wouldn't worry about it.
 
I would look upon this as an opportunity to storytell the non-mechanical aspects of an Exalt's Essence rating. Someone with Essence 4 and relatively lower Abilities & Virtues is likely to have more raw power than discipline and might have a completely different outlook on reality. Supposedly, the reason why your Essence acts as a cap on your other stats is because only with profound mystical insight into the nature of Creation [or whatever] is it possible to transcend mortal limitations. If your player starts with Essence 4, ask him why, and play up the psychological/ metaphysical differences between him and the others.
 
In an attrocious comparison, EM tends to start his PCs with an Essence of 5, using CotI rules if allowed.  And his characters are usually pretty powerful from the start.  It just depends on the player and how big of a twink s/he is.
 
He has no choice at this point, as I'm the only ST that he has access to, so he's stuck with 2E.  And you're right, there is no CotI as of yet.  Now to just deal with his opinion on that (usually a screaming ranting mess as I refuse to let him convert them in his own way).
 
Oh, they will...


Most definately!


His first PC got 'elevated' to NPC status when one of the other players tried to staunch his Abercasteri beastman's near-fatal wound with the corpse of an Abyssal they had just killed.  Since the shard won't leave while someone is watching, it was still in the body when it got incinerated as it was used to cool off the blood and seal off the wound, so it flowed into the beastman.  When he was taken to be healed he vanished. Now he's being trained by Walker In Darkness and crew and will pop up later to reintroduce himself as a Paragon of Destruction. :twisted:
 
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