New Sidereals Book in hand

[Persell]

Picked it up at DragonCon this past weekend. Really well done. The art work is great, even the cover had kinda grown on me. Very interesting sections on the Bureau of Destiny and the Sidereals themselves. Charms still seem kinda off from the center, but definately balanced.


Anybody have it yet? Any questions from the masses?

 

[Jack1]

Are the anima effects still the same?


Where did integrity and war go?

 

[Persell]

Salary.


and any new backgrounds?

 

[Persell]

Looks like they moved the Abilities around alot, especially for Battles.


Journeys picked up Resistance, to replace Endurance.


Battles lost Resistance and Brawl, and gained Athletics and War.


Endings lost Athletics and picked up Integrity.


No Changes to Serenity or Secrets.


No new Backgrounds, same as in 1E. Salary seems to be just the same as 1E too. (@ Pteorak Did you want something more specific?)


The Anima effects are mostly the same, only now Secrets only protects from mind reading/control from beings with a lower Essence, and also adds the Sidereal's Essence to MDV. They also changed the mote cost to activate the effects. 10 motes to activate like always, but goes down to 5 motes with the anima banner at 11-15 range, and the down to 1 mote at 16+.


I'm still reading through the Astrology section, so I can't say for sure, but it seems to be much less complicated.


And because I know someone will ask.


Experience Costs: Caste/Favored Charm 10   Out-of Caste Charm 12  Sidereal MA Charm (Caste/Favored) 10  Sidereal MA Charm (Out-of Caste) 12  New Spell (Caste/Favored) 10  New Spell (Out-of Caste) 12  Essence current rating x9 (same as Lunars)


Any other questions?

 

[Gustav]

So...  Abyssals next or do we have to wait for another book first?

 

[Persell]

Abyssals is next. There's an advert in the front cover, along with the Role of Glorious Divinity book. I got to talk to Michal Goodwin for about 30 mins or so. He worked on the 1E Abyssals book, and the 2E Core book and is currently working on the 2E Abyssals book. He said it won't be out until after the new year, and the Dreams of the First Age is this year's last Exalted offering. He sounded pretty excited about the Abyssals too.

 

[Lord Ben]

Umm, I was thinking of having a Sidereal Martial Arts assassin confront the group of Lunar PC's on Saturday.  Want an excuse to stat out a character?  


Are the charms mostly the same?  IE, dodge charms under performance, fate bending charms under dodge?

 

[Lotus1]

man i feel so far behind i havent bought any of the second edition books.... how long have they been out now?

 

[Flagg]

man i feel so far behind i havent bought any of the second edition books.... how long have they been out now?

More than a year. Where the fuck have you been?

 

[Persell]

@ Lord Ben  I've got to make some Siddy characters for the game I'm about to be running, so if I get time between classes and homework I'll try to work one out. If you give me some more details I'll try to make it along those lines too.


About the charms, I've only skimmed the surface, so I'll have to get back to you on that front.

 

[Lord Ben]

The party is a group of 100xp or so Lunars.  Heavy in combat.   I don't know the Siddies but he should be an asskicking challenge.  Basically divine justice since the Lunars killed some gods in the area that toed the Immaculate line and the Sid's want revenge.

 

[Alabaster Anathema]

So how did Sad Ivory survive Lilith


besides by being a stone cold fox

 

[Persell]

Sad Ivory's death, or lack thereof, is covered in one of the comics. She basically made a deal with Nara-O to cease to exist for a time. Nara-O then had her wrapped in another existance and guard a Solar tomb for a period of years, I think two. It was kinda cool..but kinda vague too if you don't have the book where Lillith "killed" Sad Ivory, which I don't....or at least I don't think I do.


And to answer Lord Ben's question about the charms, yeah their still as weird and esoteric as 1E. Duck Fate is basically only a renamed Shadow of Water though, thats how the text of the charm reads too. Functions as Pg whatever Core book. Any specific charms ppl are interested in? I never played Siddies in 1E, so I don't know what ppl are looking for.

 

[Persell]

I'd like to hear about their training charms, especially the war ones.

 

[Haku1]

I've heard disturbing things... that the siderals were the next 2e DBs with puer copy/paste charms... particularly the social charms. Some of which require ROLLS to defend with.

 

[Persell]

I haven't gotten to the social charms yet, but nothing appears to be copy/paste like SotM. Everything seems to work fine with 2E rules.


However the way the first two Excellencies are worded makes me cry. Because its kinda confusing (WW didn't reprint the entire charms, only the parts that are different) and if I'm reading it correctly Sidereals can only add up to their Essence in dice/successes, not Ability+Essence. I don't like the fact that this could mean Dragonblooded would routinely have better pools than a Celestial Exalt. Hopefully I'm reading it wrong.

 

[Jack1]

That's always been the way for sidereals though. As I understand it however they can buy successes equal to their essence with the 2nd excellency, making it miles better for them than the first. but as we all no, the auspicious excellency is probably better than both anyway, so it doesn't really matter.


Do perfect successes cost a health level or not?

 

[Persell]

Well, you may consider the Sidereals 2nd Excellency to be okay, but it costs 3 motes per success. Still think the Siddies are going to be too much of a pushover to be alot of fun for a player in a mixed group. All Siddies, or as opponents, its probably not as big a deal.


I'm not sure what you mean by perfect successes either.

 

[memesis]

This is consistent with the Sidereal approach, which is not "overpowering superiority" but "leverage of luck and external factors".  The Sidereals don't win by throwing huge dice.  They win by getting other people to throw huge dice, or by making the dice they do throw always come up in their favor.

 

[Persell]

I understand that they aren't as powerful as Lunars or Solars, but shouldn't they be able to stand toe to toe against a DB of the same level and have a more than fair chance of winning? The Fateful (Ability) Excellency: Essence Auspicious (the one that lowers the target numbers) better be really effective or they're gonna get their asses handed to them.


The charms seem really cool, and on a power level comparable to Solar charms. Lower Essence pools means less opportunity to use charms, but those they get off are gonna pack some serious punch.

 

[Haku1]

I understand that one of the things that sitll chese people off is that Blade of the Broken Maiden is still as it was in 1e.


2 willpower + 2motes per die, up to dexterity + martial arts. And since it's NOT an excellency, it can be used with the sid's TN reducer. With a reaper daiklave. but no armour.


So, Sids CAN throw buckets of die, IF they want to committ up all their motes or a fair chunk of it.

 

[memesis]

shouldn't they be able to stand toe to toe against a DB of the same level and have a more than fair chance of winning?

A lower cap on dice/successes doesn't stop them from matching or beating Dragon-Blooded, or even other Celestials.

 

[Persell]

A lower cap on dice/successes doesn't stop them from matching or beating Dragon-Blooded, or even other Celestials.

Maybe so. This may be another example of how something looks on the page not exactly reflecting how it works in practice. I look at it and think it looks like the Sidereals are kinda weak, but I've always heard how mean the 1e Siddies were so mean/broken, so I guess I must be interpreting it wrong. Or it could be the the Siddie Martial Arts are so mean/broken, because the stuff in SotM seems ridiculously powerful.

 

[Persell]

All excellencies do is increase a dice pool. Dice pools are only so useful.

 

[memesis]

I've always heard how mean the 1e Siddies were so mean/broken' date=' so I guess I must be interpreting it wrong. Or it could be the the Siddie [i']Martial Arts[/i] are so mean/broken, because the stuff in SotM seems ridiculously powerful.

You've heard that from people who looked at the Charms as they stood on the page and thought "wow, that sounds broken!"  The Sidereals are balanced differently from the Solars and the Lunars, who are themselves balanced differently from each other.  But they all work.


If someone says "wow, the dice adders for Sidereals suck", my response would be:  that encourages Sidereals to look for ways to accomplish their goals that don't require them to have huge dice pools.  Presumably their other Charms reinforce this approach, like they did in 1E.