Dodge bonuses and hearthstone bracers

BinaryMoses

New Member
So...I like to fiddle, I admit it. There's a lot of things about most games I run that I find irritating, so I end up changing them. I've just started running Exalted again, using the EdExalted program and the Sol Invictus rules (redid all the charms manually for the program), and now, sitting down to play next week, I'm unhappy with the Dodge bonus for hearthstone bracers and the Essence/Dodge bonus from the players guide. My logic is that dodge is underpowered compared to other defensive abilities, so WW made the changes in the players guide to compensate...but I find their solution unaesthetic and inelegant (points for the big words here), and would like to rework them. For example, I considered allowing them to grant their materials bonus to unarmed attacks or weapons wielded by the character. What's the board's opinion-has anyone else found this not to their liking?
 
I had imagined granting the attack the bonuses weapons get for the same magical material-ie +1 accuracy, damage, and rate for orichalcum. That, in addition to the listed powers for HBs, but replacing the three dice dodge bonus.


My question, and I'm just soliciting opinion here, is what could be considered a roughly equivalent power to the Dodge bonus that would also be thematically and aesthetically consistent?


My objection is that bracers don't seem to me to be something that would increase your dodge, espescially ALL hearthstone bracers, an artifact that's common. I believe that the bonus WW gave them in the PG was an attempt to buff dodge, due to its weakness in comparison to other combat abilities. For various reasons, I'm not too worried about the balance issue (I particularly like the Sol Invictus take on Dodge) and would like to meddle with hearthstone bracers' powers accordingly.
 
Bracers have traditionally been a form of armor, D&D influences notwithstanding. If you want thematic appropriateness, there's two potential routes:


1) Boosts difficulty to strike. Base +1 to difficulty to hit wearer; modified with armor MM bonuses.


2) Non-armor soak adder. 2B/2L or something similar; modified with armor MM bonuses.
 
BinaryMoses said:
My objection is that bracers don't seem to me to be something that would increase your dodge
I can see the aesthetic problem; I suffered cognitive dissonance over it for a while until I realised: it's magic. Nuff said.
 
Same here.  I would like to mention that a few archaic fighting styles did use bracers in a similar fashion to shields, though they were less effective.
 

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