Newbie Needing Clarification (Random Questions)

[Toloran]

Hey all. My group is planning on starting an Exalted game to alternate with our normal game. The lucky *cough* guy who gets to DM/ST it is myself. :3


In any case, there are a few rules quirks/questions that I haven't been able to figure out and I'd like to get them sorted through before the game starts:


- When using a counterattack charm, does it use the full dice pool for the attack? Does it suffer from multiple action penalties? Does the opponent suffer from onslaught penalties if you counter attack multiple times?


- The five basic craft skills are pretty straight forward. However, one of my players wants to take up craft (Genesis) as part of his character's motivation. Can he just go "poof" I know craft (genesis)? I know he'll still need rare materials and a lab/workshop equipped to do it but is it required that he has to have someone teach him the basics first? We were thinking he could just learn the basics from the little scraps of memory of his previous incarnation.


- Can you take certain backgrounds (like Artifact or Manse) more then once?


- I've heard people say that you can get SUPER huge dice pools (40+) even pre-elder exalt. How can that be? The most I can think of is about 27 dice (5 ability + 5 attribute + 3 speciality +4 accuracy +10 1st excellency). I mainly am asking because I want to be ready in case one of my players finds something that exceeds that so that it doesn't surprise me (too much).


- How much does an opponent know when you use a non-obvious charm? If it is paid for with just personal essence, It would probably be impossible (baring some sort of detection charm) to tell it was used. What about with peripheral essence? Would you be able to guesstimate how much essence is used? I'm asking mainly to see how much information a player would have when deciding which defense to use against an attack (and how much I should give them). Again, this is just for charms that aren't obvious.


That's all that I can think of at the moment. Thanks in advance to any replies.

 

[skafte]

Of my head I can answer to the following.


The counter attack charm tells you what your attack dice pool is. It will not suffer from multiple action penalty, or be affected from the rate of your weapon on your last attack. Your opponent will not be affected by onslaught penalty from old attacks (on your last action), as her DV have just refreshed, my understanding is, that she will be affected if you manage to counterattack multiple times, and this will still be in effect if you attack her on your next action before her DV refresh again.


Think you need some starting abilities in the basic crafts, but that may just be me, it should be written in the start of BoS: Wonders of the Lost Age.


Yes, you can have multiple manses and artifacts.


What you can do is combo your charms, that affect the dice pool differently. Your attack dice may be difficult to get extremely high, but having charms that double your attack succ, and then double your damage pre and post soak can result in extreme amounts of dices.


Obvious charms is charms that characters can see in effect. The player have to know all charm use, as they would have no way of acting else, and as a result would have to use a Perfect every time to be sure they survive.

 

[Jeppe]

One example, off the top of my head, of a rather large dice pool, is using the sorcery spell Wood Dragon's Claw (Core, p. 254) and giving it (up to) 10 accuracy. He then uses Water Dragon From (DB, p. 208), to boost his Martial Arts rating to 10.


He now has (ideally) dex 5, MA, 10, Acc. 10, which gives 25 dice. He can use the first MA excellency to purchase 15 extra dice (since his new MA rating allows him 5 more dice from an excellency) for a total of 40 dice. All it takes is a character with a dex, martial arts, occult and essence score of 5.


One thing to pay attention to is charms that raise your attribute, ability, essence, or accuracy rather than add dice, since those charms do not count against your dice cap and may even raise it.


Note that the above assumes your DM accepts that the Wood Dragon's Claws are so like Tiger Claws (the MA weapon) that they count as form weapons for Water Dragon Style.

 

[Toloran]

Obvious charms is charms that characters can see in effect. The player have to know all charm use, as they would have no way of acting else, and as a result would have to use a Perfect every time to be sure they survive.

Well, the issue I am having is this:

[QUOTE="Exalted Core Rulebook]Obvious: Observers can tell that the Exalt is using a Charm and they have a rough idea of it's effects. Obvious permanent Charms are only obvious while in use.

[/QUOTE]
That would seem to imply that you don't get any information as to what charm the opponent is using unless one of the charms they are using is obvious.


Thanks to both of you for your responses so far.

 

[Persell]

You never get info on what charm your opponent is using. Obvious just means its obvious that they are using one.

 

[skafte]

Jeriausx, you are wrong.


Unfortunately, the writter, can't remember the name, was a bit fuzzy when writting just how much players have to know vs characters. It have though been said explicitly from the writters that the system is ment to be completely open from the players view.


What you quote is clearly what the character know. Now, what the player know, is kind of a reflexive knowledge that enables the character to use the correct charm to defend herself. Actually you also have to tell your players how many dice you are rolling, which charms you are using (with info about it's working if they don't already know it), what DVs your NPCs have and so on.


It's too late for me to explain why this is in a good way. But you will run into a lot of problems if you don't. Players will use Perfects every time. They will burn through their essence and willpower faster than explosive cord, as they need to be absolutely sure to hit and not getting hit every time - meaning get as many dice rolling as possible, instead of just using what is needed. This will lead to some very messy and short fights, there is no way that a character (PC or NPC) can leave a battlefield alive (too many dice rolled). And this in turn leads to a lot of trouble for you, as you can't have NPCs that can give your PCs a long and cool fight without risking killing them in first go. And at the same time, your players will kill any extra every time, making it almost impossible to just maim them.


Not that long ago there was a thread about this over at the WW forum, it might be worth digging after, as some of the writters hang out there.


What the obvious keyword means, is that characters can see charms are used, and this in turn may lead to some NPCs phoning the Wyld Hunt, as they can actually see solar charms in use.

 

[Persell]

No, you gain NO information info on the actual charm used, nor did i quote anything. Player gain no special knowledge. A Key Word: Obvious charm nor more than a charm that is clearly a charm. Anything beyond that is entirely the ST's choice.


I'll also point out that perfect defenses don't cost WP and are only 3/4m, so players won't be "burning" through anything.

 

[skafte]

No, you gain NO information info on the actual charm used, nor did i quote anything. Player gain no special knowledge. A Key Word: Obvious charm nor more than a charm that is clearly a charm. Anything beyond that is entirely the ST's choice.
I'll also point out that perfect defenses don't cost WP and are only 3/4m, so players won't be "burning" through anything.

If you are a Dragon-Blooded, or have your Perfect in a MA style you need more than 3 to 4 motes.


Read this thread before you reply again.


To help you find the important part (besides that all the posts say the ame thing), this post say it pretty clearly:

The game was explicitly designed with transparency in mind-- it's right there in the rules that you have to announce your Charm uses to everyone at the table.
Rebecca Borgstrom unfortunately has this tendency to overestimate the reading comprehension skills of her audience, and thinks that having two clearly stated, non-contradictory rules means that people will be able to apply both simultaneously without problems. The Obvious Keyword could have greatly benefitted from a line explicating its nature as a setting-defining mechanic, rather than a rules-altering one.

 

[wordman]

When using a counterattack charm, does it use the full dice pool for the attack? Does it suffer from multiple action penalties? Does the opponent suffer from onslaught penalties if you counter attack multiple times?

As mentioned above: charm will specify pool; no; yes.

The five basic craft skills are pretty straight forward. However, one of my players wants to take up craft (Genesis) as part of his character's motivation. Can he just go "poof" I know craft (genesis)?

In the two editions of Exalted, there have been about three and half different versions of the crafting rules. Canonically (I think) the current answer is yes, he can just go "poof"; however, given that a big part of the setting is the "lost knowledge" of the First Age, this just seems stupid. The loosey-goosey nature of the rules about crafting and First Age knowledge in general is why I created my Science rules. If crafting and discovery of lost lore looks to be a big part of your game, you may want to give them serious consideration. For games that only touch on these ideas, though, they are probably overkill.

Can you take certain backgrounds (like Artifact or Manse) more than once?

Yes.

I've heard people say that you can get SUPER huge dice pools (40+) even pre-elder exalt. How can that be? The most I can think of is about 27 dice (5 ability + 5 attribute + 3 speciality +4 accuracy +10 1st excellency). I mainly am asking because I want to be ready in case one of my players finds something that exceeds that so that it doesn't surprise me (too much).

I wouldn't worry about this that much. If characters find some sort of "trick" that lets them do something like this, what usually happens is: player spends tons of motes to activate all kinds of crap to get a mega-pool. Glowing like the sun, they roll umpty-many dice. Opponent spends four motes to perfectly defend. Player mutters.
One thing you should be aware of, however, is that the language used in charm descriptions can be annoyingly ambiguous. Exalted does not really use formal definitions for very much, and sometimes uses certain words as shorthand for something that may or may not be intended. For example, a charm might say something like it "adds Essence to the accuracy of an attack". Some people assume this means: "the Accuracy rating of the attack is raised by Essence", others might assume the writer is just being sloppy, and means "add Essence dice to the attack pool". What's the difference? Well, as no doubt someone will vociferously argue, a weapon's Accuracy provides dice that are not counted against the limit of dice from charms and, therefore, charms that "add to accuracy" don't count against charm caps. Others will say that it doesn't really boost Accuracy at all, but is just (confusing) shorthand for adding attack dice. Still others will say that even if it really is boosting Accuracy, it still counts as "dice supplied by charms" anyway. And so on. A similar situation exists when charm text says that it boosts an Attribute rating or an Ability. I once tried to categorize the various mechanical changes charms could make as an effort to wrap my head around his problem.


As you get deeper into the rules, you'll find that you'll often have to make a judgment about whether a line of text is intended to represent a strange rule divergence or is just sloppy writing. My experience, unfortunately, is that it is usually the latter. A very simple example of this is the use of the word "action", which means at least four different things in the main rulebook, and you have to pick which one is which.


If you are really brave, you might also want to dive into the various interpretations of defense value, all of which seem to be at least marginally correct.

How much does an opponent know when you use a non-obvious charm?

The "Obvious" keyword is another one of those things that seems to depend a lot on who you ask. In particular, there are a lot of charms where it seems like they should be Obvious, but lack the keyword, and others that have the keyword when it seems like they shouldn't. I kind of suspect that either the idea was originally one thing that became something else during editing, or that different designers never fully agreed on what it meant. In any case, regardless of what the various rules actually say, I tend to assume that characters remain in the dark about non-obvious charms, and that even Obvious charms only seem like "that guy is doing magic", but convey nothing about what kind of magic or how much essence is fueling it. The reason I rule it this way is that the game contains a number of charms that exist solely to reveal such things, so if the general rule is that such things are always revealed anyway, then those charms are totally useless. This is a pretty clear sign that at least one designer thought it works like I suggest, or else they wouldn't have designed the charms in the first place. As far as player knowledge, I never reveal when/if my NPCs use non-Obvious charms, and play my NPCs as it the players never reveal theirs.
Note, on the other hand, that anima flares can reveal a lot to a trained observer. The colors can reveal caste, for example. The level at which the flare erupts can give a rough indication of how much essence was used, and so on.

 

[Sherwood]

Using the anima flare to gauge Essence use is mostly reliable, but don't depend on it too much. If a player does a fancy maneuver then spends a single mote to flare their anima, a opponent might think that the character is using some powerful Charm or Combo and react with some major defensive Charms. This trick won't work every time, and eventually you will run into someone with a Charm to tell exactly what was used and how much Essence spent and on what.

 

[cyl]

On the obvious keyword / announcing charms used in combat:


I've always dealt with this that way:


- charms effects are described (if this is the first time a player is targeted by this charm) or named, but without mention of the total number of motes invested (in case of x/die charms) like "he used a die adding charm to boost his attack / the first excellency"


- the obvious keyword is "used" by the audience, and the npcs. They will remember the person who used such uncommon magic "This guy had super powers... he cut that poor Dynast in half before he had the chance to even draw his sword... I tell you mate, he must be 'nathema"... the more obvious charms the players or their opponents used, the more traceable they are because they're noticed by bystanders... a bit like the anima banner. Which is why the night caste anima power is so awesome.

 

[Toloran]

*In my best Jessica Atreides impression* Gentlemen, there's no need to fight over me. */end Impression*


Oh ok, thanks everyone for the answers given.


From reading both the responses in this thread, the thread Skafte linked, and re-reading the book, this seems like the happy medium version (Between players know everything and players only know obvious charms):


Players (not characters) know the name and approximate effects of any charm directed at them whether it is targeting them specifically or they are just within it's area of effect. This is true regardless of whether the charm is obvious or not. If it isn't obvious, then although the player knows what's happening, their character does not. In such cases, the character is reacting out of their supernatural awareness and being generically awesome. With obvious charms, everyone who can see/sense the charm being used knows that it is in effect regardless of who it is targeting.


However on the flip side, if a charm isn't obvious and doesn't target you (such as many MA styles and a few other things) then you aren't privy to it's effects or even that it was activated unless you have other means of detection (seeing their anima banner increase, for example). This doesn't apply to most defensive charms (which can be argued that they are targeting your attacks), but it does apply to many self-buffing charms (Like Lightning Speed).


Does that seem like a reasonable way to do it?


EDIT: Oh yeah, and one (hopefully) last question:


Do committed motes of peripheral essence (such as to an artifact or a charm) count towards your anima banner? For charms it is probably yes, but I'm not so sure about artifacts.

 

[Smeggedoff]

Do committed motes of peripheral essence (such as to an artifact or a charm) count towards your anima banner? For charms it is probably yes, but I'm not so sure about artifacts.

Only when you spend the motes to commit them, then your banner fades back down as normal, it doesn't stay up for the duration of the commitment.

 

[Nerrin]

If you are really brave, you might also want to dive into the various interpretations of defense value, all of which seem to be at least marginally correct.

Oh good gods thank you for pointing this out. The various oddities of DV -- where one thing I read made it sound like it was a pool you spent, and another a solid value similar to, say, D&D's AC -- were the single biggest annoyance of trying to figure out the combat rules for me. I probably would've found the answer if I just kept reading deeper into the rules, clarified in relation to other matters (or maybe not), but I just kept getting hung up on that problem.

 

[wordman]

I probably would've found the answer if I just kept reading deeper into the rules...

Probably not, since the answer really isn't in the books. The best you can hope for is to find an answer that works for your group. You'll find that most players will have their own answer, often without realizing that other interpretations exist. But if you collect a group of those players together, usually their answers will not match. So, when starting a game, it is best to lay out how it will work up front.

 

[skafte]

Do committed motes of peripheral essence (such as to an artifact or a charm) count towards your anima banner? For charms it is probably yes, but I'm not so sure about artifacts.

As Smeggedoff said, it is only when you use the motes they affect your Anima banner, so it will fade as normal. The only difference from normal essence use, is that you can't regain that essence before you release the charm.