Cost Reduction

[The Mad hatter]

ok, i was flipping though bone and ebony and savent and sorcerer thinking about making a new exalted who used sorcery or necromancy, but one thing hit me is the high cost in both will and essence for magic, the time thing while slighty annoying i can live with, since i figure powerful magic should take time, but the will and essence will kill me in the end.....


so i thought about a occult or lore charm, required you to have the maxium circle of magic (save void or solar) to learn and being a like essence 4 or 5 with a nessry of 4 or 5 in the ability that would cut the willpower cost and reduce the essence cost by like 10 motes on each spell for a scene, what do you people think would be better level for it and what kind of charm?


i figured it would cost like 5 will and 20 or so essence..


Feedback?

 

[Flagg]

I think that's potentially very unbalancing. It also hamstrings No Moon Lunars, as they have an anima power very similar to that.


I'd say if you want a specific character to be able to cast cheap spells, go the Artifact route; this way, not every sorceror is running around casting DoOB and Flying Guillotine 50 times in a row.


-S

 

[The Mad hatter]

what level artfact do you think? and on a related note, why is it ghost blooded can use necromancy but ghosts cant? arnt God-Bloods supposed to be weaker then the orignal? a Ghost-Blooded with necromancy could knock most ghosts for a loop with the right spells

 

[Persell]

I agree with Still here in that the mote reduction is too much like the No Moon power. But a charm that reduces the Willpower cost should be possible. Maybe letting it cost only WP for all types of spells. Or letting you save up extra WP points through an hour long meditative ritual. Meditate an hour, roll Willpower, successes are extra WP points that can be used in spells from dawn to sunset. That ought to work.


It would, of course, be an Essence 4 or 5 charm.

 

[Persell]

And by the way: Solars able to cast sorcery requirering high expenditures of WP have access to so much Essence, that it shouldn't be nessecary to reduce the Essence cost.

 

[riven5]

Grab a Gem of Sorcery.  It was in the old Bo3C, but a lot of good stuff was in there that never made it to S&S.  If I remember correctly, it took 10 motes off of one spell you cast, once per day.  Kind of cool if you ask me...though I'd make it a way lower level, IMO.  Then, find a Wood Manse and get yourself a Gem of Memory Will (also Bo3C)...regain 1 wp per session.


Nothing special, I know, but they help.

 

[The Mad hatter]

but you can only receive the benefits of one herthstone at a time cant you? or have i been screwing my players overe there.....

 

[riven5]

Uhhh...I think you've been screwing your players over, heh.  After all, if you could only be under the effect of one hearthstone at a time, then why would you be able to even GET more than one stone during character creation?  Look at DBs...those guys get -tons- of Hearthstones.


All the same, even if you were only allowed to be under the power of one stone at a time, both of these are one-time uses.  One is usable once a day, the other once a session.  So you could still use both of these, even if you can only use one stone at a time.

 

[The Mad hatter]

well hell, be damn usfule little trick, heres another magical relating qustion, Ghosts and Necromancy and Sorecry? could they conceivably pull it off? admittivly they would be restricted to the lowest levels but couldnt it operate like Terrestrial style martial arts?


also, a odd thought, a abyssal with void circle magic and celestial circle magic gets their hands on a artfact to let them summon a demon one circle highen then normal, then summons a 3rd circle demon and a Hekatonkhire, then uses the spwaning on monsters on them (im trying to think of a horriable thing to inflint on the players of the game im starting up)


also, Imbue Alagram, could a sidreal inpart sidreal style MA in it, or even worse a Eclipse cast or a Moonshadow cast imbue it with chrams of diffrent Exalted and sprits and Arconi and even the ablity to use sorcery? (again, somthing evil to think on, i rember a thred on here about thaumagst transforming self into a Bhemoth so i thought...)

 

[DarkProphet]

you can enjoy the special effects of multiple hearthstones at a time, as long as you do whatever is required to access that power.


However, you can only enjoy the essence-regen powers of one hearthstone at a time, whichever grants you the largest regen-rate.  Although I suppose you could pick which one you get the regen-rate of, but I don't expect many, if any, would chose one of the lesser stones.

 

[wordman]

I play with house rules that allow you to get around time constraints by using a higher circle of magic to cast a lower circle spell. Mechanically (assuming you have access to the correct circles), this is just paying more willpower to reduce casting time. It occurs to me that you could also do the opposite, adding to the casting time of a spell by a turn to reduce the willpower cost by one.

 

[Silence In Daylight]

Grab a Gem of Sorcery.  It was in the old Bo3C, but a lot of good stuff was in there that never made it to S&S.  If I remember correctly, it took 10 motes off of one spell you cast, once per day.  Kind of cool if you ask me...though I'd make it a way lower level, IMO.  Then, find a Wood Manse and get yourself a Gem of Memory Will (also Bo3C)...regain 1 wp per session.
Nothing special, I know, but they help.

 Stone of the Revolutionary Dog. Best friend of any Exalt that goes through WP like water; every time the character regains WP, he/she regains an extra WP. Oh, and regular 2-die stunts...

also, Imbue Alagram, could a sidreal inpart sidreal style MA in it, or even worse a Eclipse cast or a Moonshadow cast imbue it with chrams of diffrent Exalted and sprits and Arconi and even the ablity to use sorcery? (again, somthing evil to think on, i rember a thred on here about thaumagst transforming self into a Bhemoth so i thought...)

 Depends on how one interprets the text about the Exalt type's charms. A strict interpretation would argue that MA charms are theoretically non-specific to Exalt type (despite Siddie MA being named for Siddies, as Solars and Abyssals can learn it as well), and make them verboten. Besides, if you have to work that hard to make Imbue Amalgam even more broken than it already is...


 Regarding charms derived from the Eclipse/Moonshadow caste power, even though the Exalt knows those charms, they aren't of the Exalt's type, and therefore can not be granted via Imbue Amalgam.

 

[uteck]

but you can only receive the benefits of one herthstone at a time cant you? or have i been screwing my players overe there.....

The section on the Manse background in the core book discusses this.  Not the Heartstone background as would make sence.  I don't  have a book handy now or I would give you the page number and a quote.

 

[Flagg]

The section on the Manse background in the core book discusses this.  Not the Heartstone background as would make sence.

There is no "Hearthstone" Background.


-S

 

[uteck]

The section on the Manse background in the core book discusses this.  Not the Heartstone background as would make sence.

There is no "Hearthstone" Background.


-S

Opps.  I was thinking of the Artifact background. Which is still wrong, it would be under the Manse background.


Mental note, drink coffee before posting.


Note 2, read book before posting.

 

[Kajata]

A lot of the time I do think that the exalted sorcery system is a bit cumbersome, especially when it can eat through a character's xp and willpower like termites through wood.  Also the bang for your buck on SOME spells is a bit lame; I'm looking at you terrestrial circle sorcery!  But I think sorcery in exalted works best when it's a secondary thing, the same with necromancy.  The "sorcerer" character should never take just sorcery/necromancy: he's not going to have enough willpower to last out the week.


I'd say take some martial arts or something for combat and just use sorcery for a lot of other things.  Sorcery is expensive and generally quite useless in combat, however when you want to weave food out of thin air or impress people sorcery has no second.  Be a sorcerer-engineer character or whatever.  A "sorcerer" may be a very impressive char once he gets going, but after that he'll be twiddling his thumbs for a while until he can get some willpower back.