Heroic Exalted

[Kajata]

I'm sorry if someone has already brought this up at some point, but I did a little (by no means exhaustive) search for it and nothing came up, so I thought I'd make a new topic.


Basically, upon reading the alchemical book, I saw the bit about Heroic Exalted and was intrigued by the concept, but am just trying to think of a way to put it into dots and mechanics.


I've just kinda been thinking of a few different ideas, but any help/suggestions/links to this topic elsewhere would be much appreciated!


What I thought of so far is mostly REALLY basic but I was thinking that you could try and base the caste system off the virtues, maybe plus one other; since they're meant to be Heroic after all.  If anyone else has got another idea, I'd be happy to hear it, but if you just think the entire Heroic Exalted thing is stupid and you hate it please don't reply here just to tell me that you think it sucks  I'm not disagreeing or trying to start an argument, I'd just rather keep this thread to the game mechanics and such.

 

[Persell]

If you wanted to base Heroic Caste on the virtues you could use willpower as a fifth but when it comes to charms it might step on convictions feet. And remember just because all the other exalted have five caste doesn't mean Heroic Exalted do.[/code]

 

[Guest]

Heroic Exalted? aren't all exalted heroic by defintion of stats and the like if I am lost please explain.

 

[Persell]

Heroic Exalted? aren't all exalted heroic by defintion of stats and the like if I am lost please explain.

They're from Auto. Here's the passage that mentions them


The Mortal Exalted: Realizing the irresponsibility of the


Celestial Hierarchy toward their Exalted, Autochthon liberates


the process of Exaltation. He sacrifices some of the souls


and energy he collected and crafts them into unaligned


Exalted Essences, to roam free and find brave and worthy souls


to attach themselves to and Exalt. They are Chosen of No


One and will in time come to be known as the Heroic Exalted,


heroes that obey no god and have no false claims of leadership.

 

[Persell]

one small question that id like an answer to.


what would these "heroic exalteds" anima banner look like?


one possiblety is their essence is so internalized they have no perepherial essence another is its just pure white light, without the golden connotations of a solars anima.

 

[Alestrion]

one small question that id like an answer to.
what would these "heroic exalteds" anima banner look like?


one possiblety is their essence is so internalized they have no perepherial essence another is its just pure white light, without the golden connotations of a solars anima.

I would guess that they'de be whatever color and shape matched the personality of the person imbued. Being that they are unaligned I wouldn't think that they would need a specific set of colors.

 

[Persell]

one possiblety is their essence is so internalized they have no perepherial essence another is its just pure white light, without the golden connotations of a solars anima.

This is more or less what I thinking.


Their charms would probably be tied to their virtues so their powers might resemble spirit charms.

 

[The Mad hatter]

ive looked everywere in that book for the comments about heroic exalted and Gaia's souls being the dragons, but i cnt find it anywere...


were is all this stuff?

 

[Quchu]

It's one of the possible futures from the Quest for the Great Source (a rather awesome campaign one might say.) Like it's been said before, Autochthon creates a new type of Essence Shard that is not aligned to anything, the Chosens of No One.


And if I remember correctly, the Dragons being Gaia's souls has never been explicitly mentioned but can be easily assumed... but I'm usually wrong when I don't have the proof in front of me and have it read to me aloud.

 

[Obsidian Soul]

Remember that the Lunars have three castes, though they did once have five, and the Alchemicals might have six, so five isn't a constint.  The Heroic Exalted could be associated with the four Virtues, which would make them a bit like the Fae, but it could work.  You would have to decide if they were as powerful as the Solar Exalted or if they were more or less powerful.  You would have to figure how well they do with Necromancy, Sorcery and Supernatural Martial Arts Styles.

 

[Kajata]

I think I'd give them Solar power level in most things, and an ability, like the Solars/Abyssals to learn Sid MA at a bumped up price.  No solar sorcery/void necromancy though, but everything underneath that I'd say.  I also really like the idea of "super eclipses", maybe paying 15xp to learn charms from any exalt, but of course using them at normal costs.  I'd also give them a limit to boosting dice pools of Essence + Applicable Virtue (ie. Valor for combat, etc..).


I think linking them with virtues sounds good, but not in a way that means they're controller and driven by them, but so they can harness their power to focus their essence or something.

 

[Persell]

an idea.


Maybe heroic exalted dont HAVE charms as such , just innate powers.


one idea.


Their powers automaticly increase when they reach certain thresholds in both essence and ability.


just an idea.


I'd try to keep them just below dragon blooded personaly since much more power leads to aaragonce and autochian seems to want to AVOID arogance in them.

 

[Obsidian Soul]

Their Essence Shards, not genetic Exalts, which means that they would have to have the same power level as a Celestial at least.

 

[Kajata]

Yeah, and I don't think anything that's been directly tampered with by autochthon should be weaker than a dragon blooded.  He's trying to keep things unbiased by making sure the exalts have no allegience.  What good are they gonna be if there's not that many of them and they're weaker than the 10,000 strong dragon blooded host?

 

[Alestrion]

I was just thinking about this the other day while looking through some of the  old World of Darkness books and one thing in particualr popped into mind: "MAGE." These new pieces of essence could be the "Avatart Shards" that cause mortals, unaligned to any god, to manifest powers that could at one point surpass any exalts. Yes, an Arete-5-Prime-5 Mage would whoop a Solar any day.

 

[Quchu]

Been playing in an Exalted game mixed with Mage for a while. Prime 5 plus alpha Mages don't even get to own DBs. The only part Spheres are good for is utility. Teleportation using Correspondence or healing with Life are just better than Sorcery. No anima banner flaring like no other or huge mote expenditure.


It might be the way we handle Avatar background and casting though.

 

[Quorlox]

What do you think of the following?  


Heroic Drive:  Learning from the methods used by the dying Primordials to curse the Exalts, Auto has added a Heroic Drive to each of these Essences because the world is not black and white and sometimes heroes who spend too long in the gray areas end up in the black.  To prevent them from staying there too long, Auto gave each of the Essences a drive towards heroism and bravery.  Game mechanically, this will be similar to the Great Curse except Limit will be accrued for non-heroic actions and a Limit Break will require the Exalt to adopt a more black and white view of the world.  If somebody needs to be saved, the Exalt will have to save them regardless of who it offends.  The details will be Virtue specific and still need to be developed.  


Virtues:  Minimum 2 in each Virtue, perhaps higher before being recruited.  


Essence:  To keep his new creations a mystery, Auto made it so that Heroic Exalts have only Personal Essence and no animas.  Their Essence Pool should equal a Solar's Personal + Peripheral Essence Pool.  


Essence Regeneration:  Heroic Exalts can regenerate Essence no matter where they are, including Creation, the Underworld, and Malfeas.  


5MM:  Heroic Exalts can attune to any item constructed of 5MM without fear of destroying the item, but because they are unaligned, they gain no additional benefits from them either.  At the GM's discretion, an item used long enough in a heroic manner may grant its material bonuses to a Heroic Exalt.


Charms:  To allow for maximum versatility in overcoming the challenges facing Creation, Auto gave the Heroic Exalts an improved version of the Eclipse Caste ability.  They can learn any Charms from any source, including spirits, Solars, Lunars, DBs, and Abyssals.  Unlike the Eclipse, they only pay the usual XP cost for these Charms, but because they do not have Charms of their own, Heroic Exalts must find some spark of knowledge before learning a Charm even for a Favored Ability.  It can be taught, researched, and maybe even learned by watching the Charm being used (GM discretion).  GMs may rule certain Charms off-limits, but this should be used sparingly.  It's much better to require some epic quest to learn a Charm than to simply forbid it.  


Favored Abilities, Attributes, and Virtues:  Heroic Exalted do not have Caste Abilities.  Instead, they select 5 Favored Abilities, 2 Favored Attributes, and one Favored Virtue.  The XP cost of increasing Attributes, Abilities, and Virtues as well as Charms, spells, etc. are determined based on these choices, similar to other Exalts.  Before learning a Charm, a Heroic Exalt must meet the pre-requisites, although because they can learn such a large variety of Charms, GMs are encouraged to allow new paths to some Charms if it makes sense (GM discretion).

 

[Persell]

I like most of what you have especially the heroic drive. I dont like your idea on charms though.  That leaves newly exalted Heroics in a bad place until they learn some charms and makes them way to reliant on other types of exalted

 

[Kajata]

Yeah, I can see there being a problem with having to go on a big quest for each charm, I mean, your magical advancement is going to be seriously stunted if that's the case.

 

[Flagg]

Reminds me of the "Journeyman" Discipline from Earthdawn. I think an Exalt who knows a hodge-podge of Charms might be kind of fun to play -- I don't know if I'd let them learn Solar/Abyssal level Charms though -- If Auto's own Exalted are only Celestial Level, why should these be more powerful?


Besides, limiting them to Celestial, Terrestrial, and Spirit Charms still gives them LOTS to choose from, but limits the potential twinkery somewhat.


-S

 

[Flagg]

I'd also give them their own version of Ox-Body, and prohibit them from learning other types.


-S

 

[Quorlox]

Thanks for the suggestions!  


I don't have the Auto book so I wasn't aware of the limits for Alchemicals, but if Auto wanted them to face off against everybody, he might put in the extra effort to give them access to more powerful Charms.  Twinkery will always be a problem with such creations, just like the Eclipse Caste, but if a GM allows something like this into their game they have to control it.  


And as Stillborn pointed out, he Journeyman was one of my inspirations; I play a lot of Earthdawn.

 

[Flagg]

Twinkery will always be a problem with such creations, just like the Eclipse Caste, but if a GM allows something like this into their game they have to control it.

I just don't like the idea of a Heroic Exalt being just as good as a Solar in terms of potential Charms, and BETTER than an Eclipse Caste at the same time.


I'd like to run with this idea a bit. Maybe I'll put it into one of my games. I don't want to tackle the entire Locust Crusade just to have some HEs, though. I think instead I'll have a few of these shards lying hidden and contained somewhere in Creation, left behind by Autocthon long ago. The players can stumble upon them and free the shards -- perhaps not even knowing what it is they're doing -- which would then open up the possibility of having a few HEs in Creation.


-S

 

[Kajata]

Yeah, I like the idea of the heroic exalted being like prototype exalts that are like templates for the other exalts, able to use all their powers.

 

[Flagg]

Yeah, I like the idea of the heroic exalted being like prototype exalts that are like templates for the other exalts

Canonically, these are the Alchemicals.


-S