New Sidereals Book in hand

It's a tribute to the wackiness of sidereal charms that the 1E Brawl tree met such a strange end:

  • Horrific Wreath: Now a post-form part of Violet Bier of Sorrows.
  • Tolerant Strife: Eliminated
  • Crimson Palm Counterstrike: Made much stronger and a post-form part of Violet Bier of Sorrows.
  • Unobstructed Blow: Prereq to the pinnacle of VBoS.
  • Easily Accepted Proposition Stance: Now the pinnacle Presence charm. (The 1E Presence pinnacle is now the pinnacle of the War tree.)
 
Are you sure she wasn't meaning it was Mnemon inside the weird robot suit standing next to Chejop?.. given he addresses her as Mnemon and such.. maybe she had an accident and got turned into a robot ^^


But it's clearly Ejava in the actual drawings
 
Nope... that looks more like the Tya Sidereal, the one from the west... of course, Mnemon COULD have lost an eye and got Celestial Sorcery and a haircut. I kind of doubt THAT....


Personally, I think it's a typo, where they slotted in Mnemon's name instead of Ejava... or of course... Mnemon COULD be stuck in the warstrider kind of like a Mortar Headd's Fatima from 5 star story...
 
Incidentally, WW put "aspect" in the "caste" spot at the top of the Sidereal character sheet. This error confirms the suspicion, long held by many of us, that a significant percentage of their printed matter is a cut-and-paste job.


And while we're on the subject: five lines for Backgrounds? With 15 points to start and extra bonus points, any Siddie with fewer than six Backgrounds is probably min-maxing for gear.


I dig the new Charms, though, like Thought-Swiping Distraction and Masque of the Uncanny from the Larceny tree.
 
So, from the perspective of someone who didn't like the 1E Charm set, how does 2E compare?
 
Flagg said:
So, from the perspective of someone who didn't like the 1E Charm set, how does 2E compare?
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As far as I understand it basically is the 1E charmset, adapted to 2E (for good or ill I'll leave up to other posters; I've not played enough Exalted to tell how well they did it yet.)
 
Incidentally, WW put "aspect" in the "caste" spot at the top of the Sidereal character sheet. This error confirms the suspicion, long held by many of us, that a significant percentage of their printed matter is a cut-and-paste job.
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Considering they were aspects in 1st edition. That doesn't sound like cut and paste to me.

And while we're on the subject: five lines for Backgrounds? With 15 points to start and extra bonus points, any Siddie with fewer than six Backgrounds is probably min-maxing for gear.
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Most WW base character sheets suck space wise, this is nothing new. Which is why it is nice that MrGone,etc make sheets.

So, from the perspective of someone who didn't like the 1E Charm set, how does 2E compare?
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Who's charm set and why?

As far as I understand it basically is the 1E charmset, adapted to 2E (for good or ill I'll leave up to other posters; I've not played enough Exalted to tell how well they did it yet.)
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Stephenls has mentioned that the Sidereal and Abyssals wouldn't be receiving much charm changes since they needed it far less than the Lunars did.
 
The fluff is love. There are a great many comics... including a very perky Sad Ivory/Roseblack comic by Melissa Uran in the epilogue comic. There is also, a VERY poorly done comic with Ayesha being hit with an ugly stick... you'll know it when you see it.


The charms will require much looking into.
 
Haku said:
The fluff is love. There are a great many comics... including a very perky Sad Ivory/Roseblack comic by Melissa Uran in the epilogue comic. There is also, a VERY poorly done comic with Ayesha being hit with an ugly stick... you'll know it when you see it.
The charms will require much looking into.
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Yeah, that artist must have broken his hand the day before or something. I can't even tell who the other Siddy is. All the rest of the comics are great though.
And to answer Flagg's question about the charm set, they still have very esoteric charms and effects. You can still sail to heavy and dodge a city, etc etc. However, everything seems to be much more balanced and more importantly, at least to me, understandable. The astrology is SO much easier. You make two rolls, use the number of success to determine how many points you have, distribute those points amongst the effects you want and you're done. Very easy, very cool.
 
I find it funny that the comics in the Sidereals book made the Sidereals feel the most super heroic (in the American comic book sense) among all the Exalted types out there.
 
MrMephistopheles said:
so I reiteration the question to the poster. Why did you dislike the charm set?
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I'm not going to start another debate on the merits (or lack thereof) of the Sidereal Charms.
 
Flagg said:
So, from the perspective of someone who didn't like the 1E Charm set, how does 2E compare?
Click to expand...
I don't remember if you were part of the "sail charms should actually be about sailing, dammit" faction. If you were, you will be disappointed. Charm concepts and trees are basically the same sort of esoteric application of their abilities as before. (e.g. Performance still has one of the better dodges, etc.) I haven't compared the text to the 2E Storyteller's Companion, but the writing itself is tighter than 1E. In general, just as the DB charms in the 2ESC gave a good indication of what the final book eventually held, so it goes with the sidereals.


Avoidance Kata, for example does exactly the same thing as 1E, but is described much better:

If -- within his first two actions after Join Battle or Join Debate -- the Sidereal decides he would rather have been somewhere else, he can activate this Charm. Having done so, he vanishes from his current location and reappears in another location. The Sidereal cannot control his new location, but it’s someplace plausible for him to be if he'd decided to take a different course a few minutes before. Simultaneously, an Illusion effect blurs the memories of other people so they don't remember the Sidereal's presence. Wounds still bleed, traps remain sprung, Essence remains spent. However, other people in the aborted encounter receive vague notions of an alternate series of events to explain any evidence of the Sidereal's presence, which they soon confabulate into a detailed scenario that they believe completely. Spending two Willpower overcomes this Illusion.
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Outside the charms section, the flavor text is way better, even though the 1E version wasn't bad either. The Gold Faction, in particular, seems more believable in how it is presented, and the three versions of the Great Prophesy add more than I thought they would.


I haven't looked at astrology much. At a brief glance, it seems to be largely the same principles, with simplified mechanics.
 
Am I the only one who thinks the Convention on Forbidden Gods (sub-convention of the Convention on Essence Wielders) is a referrence to the X-Files?
 
Clearly then, the Convention on Oversight is actually a cabal of these Forbidden Gods (whose appearances resemble black, viscous oil-like substance) who have evaded the detection of the Loom of Fate by snatching the body and Essence of elder Sidereals who were too confident in their abilities.
 
... Just got Sidereals. Man that's some fucking godawful cover art. Hey Chosen of Endings ninja guy! Shredder called. He want his 80s-style shoulderpads back.
 
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