Custom Charm Balancing

[Lord Isfa]

Hello all. This is about a bunch of firsts for me here. My first post to this board, my first time playing Exalted (I likes me some second edition!), and my first time ever as Storyteller/GM/head honcho type person.


One of my players is a Twilight going for a "Super Quick Study" motif (as well as trying to be kung-fu MacGyver). He wanted an artifact that would help him learn faster, but after working with him for a bit we (well I guess I did mostly) came up with this Charm, which I feel works better for his character:


Sudden Understanding Meditation


Cost: 5m, 1wp


Type: Reflexive


Duration: One Scene


Keywords: To Be Decided Later


Prerequisites: Lore 3, Essence 2, Any Lore Excellency


After activating this charm, the player may reflexively designate a target. The player may reflexively choose another target once one is chosen, but only once per action. Whenever that target uses any ability, the player may roll (Intelligence + Lore) and gain the number of successes in bonus dice to that ability for so long as the motes remain committed. The number bonus dice may not exceed (Target's Ability - Character's Ability, minimum 0). The player may reroll for any ability the target uses again, but loses all previous bonus dice when doing so.


Example: (Because I LOVE giving examples) Bob uses SUM to watch Carl use Melee. Bob's Melee is 1 and Carl's is 5. Bob can gain up to 4 bonus dice, but only rolls 2 successes, so he gets two bonus dice. Bob later watches Carl again and rolls 3 successes getting a total of three bonus dice, discarding the previous two he had.


What do you guys think? Any notes or improvements you'd make?

 

[Persell]

To be frank, the effect is really weak and I do not see much sense in committing motes to such an inferior dice adder. You could just purchase an excellency, stunt back what you pay for it and then have an ultimately more flexible charm than that which on top of it works without any preparation, leads to more advanced charms and doesn't cost me any willpower.


Really, I do not want to set you off, but ask yourself how many times this charm will be useful to the character in question? First he has to watch someone do the "thing", then roll and then he can somewhat beef himself up. That is a lot of conditions to face when you want to increase your melee to fend of some bad guys.


Additionally... how often do you really absolutely must use some ability someone else present can use anyway and better? I really can only think of those rare circumstances where the bad guy operates some machinery and you later on have to sabotage it, but huh... not really an everyday charm. Or perhaps an ally gets knocked unconscious and can't diffuse the bomb or whatever. But that is a very special case and even then the charm is useless if you can't look into the future (and know that your ally gets knocked out).


If you want some knowledge gathering I'd do something like the following.


Perfection of the Age Spanning Memory


Cost: 5 motes 1 Willpower


Type: Simple


Duration: Instant


Keywords: Obvious


Requirements: Essence 3, Lore 4


Prerequisites: Any Lore Excellency


Bathed in the light of the sun's wisdom the lawgivers are the foremost sages among the exalted. Their long lifespans and their abundant wellspring of talent and intellect wears down the mightiest barriers science faces and lies the secrets of the universe at their feet.


With this charm, even death and reincarnation cannot hold back the scientific endeavours of the lawgivers any more. Whenever a solar uses this charms he taps into the wellspring of information subconsciously stored in his shard, basically getting access to the memories of his long dead incarnations. The solar rolls Intelligence+Lore with the grade of success showing how much knowledge he can gain and how profound the knowledge is. Esoteric knowledge is usually harder to access because lytek tends to prune away such things.


There are no hard and fast rules balancing such a charm as it is totally up to the campaign which knowledge would be useful or not.


I suggest something along


1 Success - Basic Knowledge of the last incarnation (This is a Warstrider)


2 Successes - Somewhat sophisticated Knowledge akin to second age experts on the matter (This is a noble moonsilver warstrider with integrated essence artillery)


3 Successes - Specialist Knowledge (The warstrider was forged to resemble the Anima of the Black Lion Executioner, a feared full moon general of the first age, he is believed to have died in the usurpation defending his mate)


4 Successes - Insider Knowledge (The Black Lion Executioner had his mate built him that warstrider in the Auspicious Noonday Cathedral, a famous first age factory cathedral sepcializing in warstriders. The Executioners wore this armour in many campaigns including the great fair folk crusades and he was the rallying points of the exalted armies he commanded)


5+ Successes - Use your imagination (The guy just climbing out of the warstrider looks exactly like the Executioner, in fact, it is him. He likes Strawberry Muffins, you two were married for 1200 years until you died and he fled the wyld, he still has your nirvana CDs and owes you lunch money, besides, your warstrider is bigger and waits in your crypt which is at the following coordinates).


This would be a nice tool to give the players plot relevant information, but even that would not be my first choice for a twilight charm.

 

[Jukashi]

You can get pretty much the same effect, all the time, without spending motes, by purchasing five points worth of Past Lives.

 

[Lord Isfa]

OK, my apologies for not making this clear. This is supposed to be an "Anything You Can Do..." kind of Charm, and foes are as valid targets as allies. I do get your point about letting the specialists handle their areas of expertise, though.


Did I make it clear that the bonus can apply to more than one ability at once? Returning to Bob and Carl, let's say Carl's an Eclipse. Carl sails up to shore by himself, leaps onto a horse, and rides over to Bob and shoots the breeze with him a bit. Bob knew nothing of those abilities and is especially lucky with his rolls. Bob now has 5 bonus dice to Ride, Sail, and Socialize until the Charm ends.


I'm just looking for something like that that isn't too broken - my players and I are ALL new to this system.

 

[wordman]

You could just purchase an excellency, stunt back what you pay for it and then have an ultimately more flexible charm than that which on top of it works without any preparation, leads to more advanced charms and doesn't cost me any willpower.

Though it is "an inferior dice adder", the charm has four advantages over excellencies:

1. It is a single charm that can buy dice for any ability.
   
2. It can buy dice for abilities you do not actually have. (You would not even be able to buy excellencies for such abilities.)
   
3. Apart from the willpower, over the course of a scene, it is much cheaper, even given the idea of "stunting back" excellency costs (i.e. with this charm up, you can "stunt back" the costs of other charms instead, including excellencies).
   
4. As a scene-long, it only counts as charm activation once.

It seems to be a decent concept for a "generalist" type character. The trouble is, generalists are almost unheard of in Exalted. Most aspects of Exalted mechanics are geared toward putting a character in a niche and pumping him within it. This is why you get Safim claiming that a charm which adds tons of dice instantly to a single ability is "more flexible" than a charm which adds a few dice to any ability after a short instant of (easily manipulated) observation. Within the niche of the ability, the excellency is more flexible, and outside of that niche, usually the character doesn't care because it's someone else's niche.


It may be that this charm actually makes generalist characters possible, but you would definitely be "swimming against the tide" in trying to make one. Because of that, I would either lose the willpower cost, or make the conditions of activation less stringent (e.g. perhaps let the character call on any test he's seen made in the last month, in addition to something happening right in front of him.)

 

[wordman]

Did I make it clear that the bonus can apply to more than one ability at once? ... Bob now has 5 bonus dice to Ride' date=' Sail, and Socialize until the Charm ends.[/quote']
Ah! No, I didn't get that from the description. In that case, the willpower and activation restrictions are probably justified. Even then, it might be a bit too powerful. It also seems much more like a sidereal charm than a solar one.

 

[Persell]

I agree with Wordman that it seems a bit more like a Sidereal charm than a Solar one, but I think the charm is pretty well balanced as the 1wp cost keeps it from being abused.  Looks fine by me, I think it's a really neat charm.

 

[Persell]

Did I make it clear that the bonus can apply to more than one ability at once? ... Bob now has 5 bonus dice to Ride' date=' Sail, and Socialize until the Charm ends.[/quote']
Ah! No, I didn't get that from the description. In that case, the willpower and activation restrictions are probably justified. Even then, it might be a bit too powerful. It also seems much more like a sidereal charm than a solar one.

To be fair, I got the same impression.


I still think the charm is on the rather useless side out of the reasons mentioned above, especially "generalists just don't cut it in exalted".


I had weighed the plus points you mentioned, wordman, but then I though "we are talking about four to five dice here, will it really make a lot of a difference in any but the most special circumstances?". For me the answer to the question is a relatively clear "no".


The charm even goes as far as punishing you for raising skills as it becomes less effective then.


If you want the charm to work as it stands I suggest the following changes:


The solar can acquire a speciality of his choosing by watching someone performing actions that would fall under the purview of the speciality. So, when you watch someone swordfighting, you can gain a speciality "swords".  I would drop anything about the difference in skill having to be positive. I'd say 2motes per die they are getting sounds fine.


Reasons for that change:


First. It nicely emulates learning fast. You can learn by watching someone who makes a lot of mistakes just as good as you can by watching someone who is good (ok, only to a certain degree of course, but abstracting will be neccessary).


Second. It doesn't punish you for raising skills by making your charm less effective.


Third. Specialites are not diceadders therefore you can use this charm together with an excellency for nice synergies.

 

[wordman]

Good points from Safim. The "Third" rationale he mentions is particularly important, and, to someone who hasn't done much Exalted, is more powerful than it sounds.


If you go this route, you should compare the result to the sidereal charms that use specialties in a similar way, such as Methodology of Secrets.

 

[Lord Isfa]

Thanks, I can see how an insta-specialty would work better. I haven't had a chance to see any version of the Sidereals though (but gimme a week).

 

[Persell]

I would like a sidereal charm where you steal the results of a witnessed roll for yourself and replace it with your own.  Then you could pocket the stolen roll and use it at a point later.

 

[Persell]

:shock: That would rock...unless they stole your roll.

 

[Persell]

Now that is what I would call a fate ninja effect. Stealing someone's roll and replacing it with a botch ^^