Lunar Development Help

[Creeping Chaos]

Okay, I'm starting to participate in an online exalted game, second exalted game I've been in, my first character was an exceedingly strange abyssal, but fun, I enjoyed working him into the setting, figuring out how his exaltation and experiences made him who he is, and so on...


Which is what is giving me trouble now.


I cannot, for the life of me, find the details on what a Lunar exaltation entails. I will admit, I have not read the entirety of every page of the front flavor section of the lunar book, but I skimmed it to see if the information was there and came up empty handed, I glanced over the shape shifting section, and the only thing I really found about the exaltation was notes in the motivation/stewardship section about how their motivations are... About stewardship, and in the Spirit Animal section where they mention that a Lunar gets, well, their spirit animal at exaltation. I was discussing an idea with the GM, but he commented how that it might not work due to how Lunars meet, well, Luna, at the point of exaltation, to which my answer was... "What?" because I hadn't seen anything about it. He isn't sure where the page/info is either, and it's not referenced in the index.


Anyone know where I can find all the happy details about that one?


Also, a small additional rules question, how does Octopus and Spider Barrage (1 attack at full dice pool for every combat capable extremity the character has, MoEP: L P. 154) work if the user has the Terrifying Mane (Which provides up to infinite tentacles that use the characters strength/dexterity but suffer from normal multiple action penalties, MoEP: L P. 209)?

 

[Dracogryff]

The 'Luna personally greets each of her Exalts' is something that was only printed in the 1E book, but was so universally liked that I think that most people assume it is the case even though 2E never explicitly states it, I suspect.


There was a really awesome thing I saw somewhere someone wrote up about Lunar Exaltation but I can't recall where exactly. u.u;; Basically, they Exalt in protection of something, or surviving something, as opposed to Solars exalting at moments of awesome. I hope that helps out some....kind of busy but I'll do some searching later to see if I can't find the one thing or other stuff that might help.

 

[Thanqol]

There was a really awesome thing I saw somewhere someone wrote up about Lunar Exaltation but I can't recall where exactly. u.u;; Basically, they Exalt in protection of something, or surviving something, as opposed to Solars exalting at moments of awesome. I hope that helps out some....kind of busy but I'll do some searching later to see if I can't find the one thing or other stuff that might help.

I preferred the take that Lunars exalt when they need to survive something.

 

[Dracogryff]

Yeah, that was what the post of awesome that I can't find now was about. Exalting because you succeeded at the awesome instead of attempting the awesome. *mumbles* Something along those lines anyhow.

 

[Chaka]

Luna greeting each new Lunar personally is restated in Glories: Luna. Which is an amazing pdf.

 

[Ker'ion]

My last game we had an NPC Exalt as a Lunar onboard a ship.


Unfortunately he was one of the pirates and didn't live five minutes after trying to take on the entire party after they had finished off the other pirates.


Made a good effort though. :mrgreen:

 

[Nerrin]

Jukashi gave a short outline on the differences between Solars and Lunars in how they exalt here: http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0195.html


The relevant text:

With Lunars, it happens after they've reached the point of hopelessness and make the decision to try and persevere anyway; it's common for Luna herself (or himself) to appear to them them and give Exaltation. With Solars, it happens when they attempt to do something heroic, something that normally would not be possible for a mere human; but they succeed, and then suddenly they'll realise that they just took the Second Breath.

Might that be what people were referring to?

 

[Dracogryff]

Luna greeting each new Lunar personally is restated in Glories: Luna. Which is an amazing pdf.

And now I want Glories even more. u.u Being broke makes it kind of hard to pull off, however at the moment...but good to know that.

 

[Persell]

The 'Luna personally greets each of her Exalts' is something that was only printed in the 1E book, but was so universally liked that I think that most people assume it is the case even though 2E never explicitly states it, I suspect.

What? Seriously!?


*runs of to skim through MoEP:Lunars*


Well, how about that. I would have sworn it was in the 2E book too. The descriptions of Luna, on p21 of MoEP:Lunars, strongly implies that Luna visits her Chosen at Exaltation though. Same with the picture under the mutations sidebar at the end of the character creation chapter.

 

[Dracogryff]

Indeed. I read it twice. And that's why I said 'explicitly' in my comment is that it IS implied that she visits at least a lot of them, if not all...but never states it is indeed ALL.


Until Glories it seems. But it's all good.

 

[Creeping Chaos]

Well thanks for the info guys, and the information in The Glories is quite handy...


Er, about the charm/mutation, thing, though?

 

[Dracogryff]

On the mutation question...yay for more Gloriuos Solar Saber twinkerage. My reaction would be the same as to someone wanting to abuse infinite rate and Second Excellency. Which is to say, 'Well, if you REALLY want to...' and if they ever did have the patterns spiders cut them out of reality for fucking up the loom like that. >.> A little more seriously, I would just tell someone 'NO' if they wanted to take that Abomination, Merit, Deadly Beastman or otherwise.


Mechanically, I do not think there is anything that specifically would disallow infinite attacks with Octopus and Spider Barrage used with that Abomination, however, as written. >.>


Edotnote: This isn't me trying to accuse you of wanting to twink out on this. Just my opinion, and how I'd sort of react if someone came at me SERIOUSLY with that question, instead of as a joking curiousity.

 

[Creeping Chaos]

Well, what happened was I was designing a character who was going to have that particular mutation as part of the character's traits and such (it's complicated, let's say) and I was trying to find a way to negate or abate flurry penalties so I could attack a number of foes at once (since I was told the group was missing crowd control) and then I found... Well, that charm, which is the closest to what I actually *want* to be able to do, and then runs WAAAY over the line of what's reasonable. Which is a little frustrating.


My serious question is more along the lines of "Is there a way to turn a ton of limbs on a Lunar to a number of decent attacks rather than INFINITE attacks at full die pool?"

 

[Ker'ion]

Okay, the way to figure out if this is a bit over the top is simple:


*picking up the idea and carting off with it*


Pretty much anytime someone says something like that. ^.^


Oh, and, if I may, I'd like to nominate this for the Exalted's Most Egregious [Contest].

 

[Dracogryff]

One way to potentially balance that Abomination is to have it give (Essence) in attacks or something like that.


Generally, I'm about ready to tear my hair out when someone tries to twink on getting 'lots of limbs to use with OASB' on their Lunar. Or just trying to get lots of attacks in general. *recalls the 1E Demon Embracing Robes character that also mauled game balance* The four basic and one or two more (getting, say, a bite attack and perhaps a sting attack or tail attack of some sort with ST permission) is more than enough to kill most foes in one spazztastic flurry.


Pretty much the last time I saw someone going for that, it made the group impossible to play because unless something was so armored that the others in the group couldn't even ping past it's hardness, this char would kill it in one round, which facing left groups of enemies...which they could also mow through before anyone else really got anywhere.


So, I admit I'm kind of soured on the balance of that Charm in general. >.< Nothing to do with you. I really can't help more without knowing what you're considering 'reasonable number of attacks' here. You do get a default of four, after all, which is nothing to sneeze at.

 

[Creeping Chaos]

Okay, let me explain, I was going to join a game, and I tend to create a lot of character ideas when I think about this kind of stuff, so to tone back and be able to focus on a smaller number so I might actually get one done. I was told what the group needed was someone who was decent at war, someone with throw, an archer, a tank, or some crowd control in case of combats with a ton of people. Originally I was making a Dawn caste Solar, and I had settled on the idea of a highly charismatic, megalomaniacal, non-manipulative War leader, the idea was that his personality was simply intense enough that even with the stated view that "I will go out and rule the world, because it is what I am meant to do, the world will be superior if I am in charge of it," some people would find themselves believing he was right and following him.


Then the game's original Dawn Caste came back, and I was told to make something, anything, that wasn't a Solar, but a Lunar would fit in pretty well. That kind of made a War centric design less possible because, well, Lunar's seem to really suck at War proper That being said, I made two different ideas, one was a damage soaker, with massive strength and stamina and so on, with the potential to punch people for like 32 B or L (depending on War Form mutations), but I was having trouble getting the feel for his roleplaying right. I wanted to pose him as sort of a relatively friendly/gentle giant who kind of flew off the handle and was willing to do whatever was necessary to pursue his motivation/important goals (Good compassion, higher Conviction), but the points weren't quite working out either so I started messing with another character design.


The goal was relatively simple, to be able to take down mass quantities of weak enemies in as few actions as possible, which is why the OASB and Hair Tentacle thing came into play. The hair tentacles (having a reach of up to 10 yards) struck me as a good way to deal with a number of low end enemies across the field, as well as being an interesting thing for a character to have (Character was a princess who had been driven out of her castle, exalted to protect the guards who were dying for her, but more or less flipped out and ended up strangling almost all of the enemies to death with the developing hair mutation caused by using her powers while still casteless without understanding what she was doing. Of course, I was designing her with a high compassion, being a cloistered princess sort, so the entire experience became deeply traumatic and she doesn't really remember her exaltation. Just that the castle was under attack and she brutally murdered a ton of people, leaving her feeling quite a bit like a monster), but I couldn't actually find a way to turn the hair tendrils into a larger number of attacks without suffering massive flurry penalties, so I was looking for something that would reduce them. Ideally I was hoping to be able to make something DnD whirlwind attack-esque, one attack against everyone in range, making it less useful against singular powerful enemies (and, honestly, the tendrils did rather minimal damage using her not all that high strength, even with charm boosting), but the only thing I've found so far to come even CLOSE to accomplishing it is OASB which doesn't give me one attack against everyone in 10 yards, it gives me infinite attacks against everyone in 10 yards.

 

[Ker'ion]

Upon looking this over, we instantly called down the god of houserules and had a chat with him.


Our houserule was to base it, as proper for Lunars, on an Attribute, with the maximum number of attacks equal to double whatever your natural Dexterity is.


A starting Lunar with Legendary Dexterity, Impossible Dexterity Improvement (E5), DBT and Devastating Ogre Enhancement gives you an Essence 5 Lunar with a human Dex of 7 and a DBT Dex of 9 with no custom mutations.


So, max of 18 attacks.


Which I see as more than good enough.