What essence do mortals need to be to learn TMA?
- Thread starter Burpcycle
- Start date
Ledaal Kajiri
Two Thousand Club
Scroll of Heroes states Essence 3, while Dreams of the First Age simply has such at Essence 2 only in a stat block, which are...historically unreliable. In the extreme.
As for things that a Mortal can do with Essence aside from attunement or use of Artifacts with a cost, they can also use the option to spend Essence in lieu of Resources for using Thaumaturgical arts, although such does not remove the Willpower cost. However being able to say, throw up a Ward vs Thing Which Wants Me Dead, even without any appropriate ritual materials, through just Essence, will, and ritual behavior can be...useful. Having an Enlightened Essence also has some benefits of its own, as does having an Essence of 2 or higher. Once you have an Enlightened Essence you are no longer treated as a mortal, but instead as a magical being, which is...highly useful, particularly when some charms or artifacts that automatically mind screw or kill normal mortals come into play. Once you have Essence 2 you get to add your Essence to Dodge DVs. You also gain a higher minimum damage with Essence higher than 1, and further have a higher minimum dice pool. Still, the primary direct use of essence without Essence 3 are artifact and hearthstone use of various sorts, and thaumatury. Once you get to Essence 3, then you can join the cool kids club and get your mitts on Terrestrial Martial Arts, and/or either Shadowlands Circle Necromancy or Terrestrial Circle Sorcery. Alternatively, you always have the option of finding a God or Demon or Celestial Exalt and talking them into using various powers to make you more than human, beyond having an Enlightened Essence. But such things often have...costs. Commonly significant service, often life long, among them.
As for things that a Mortal can do with Essence aside from attunement or use of Artifacts with a cost, they can also use the option to spend Essence in lieu of Resources for using Thaumaturgical arts, although such does not remove the Willpower cost. However being able to say, throw up a Ward vs Thing Which Wants Me Dead, even without any appropriate ritual materials, through just Essence, will, and ritual behavior can be...useful. Having an Enlightened Essence also has some benefits of its own, as does having an Essence of 2 or higher. Once you have an Enlightened Essence you are no longer treated as a mortal, but instead as a magical being, which is...highly useful, particularly when some charms or artifacts that automatically mind screw or kill normal mortals come into play. Once you have Essence 2 you get to add your Essence to Dodge DVs. You also gain a higher minimum damage with Essence higher than 1, and further have a higher minimum dice pool. Still, the primary direct use of essence without Essence 3 are artifact and hearthstone use of various sorts, and thaumatury. Once you get to Essence 3, then you can join the cool kids club and get your mitts on Terrestrial Martial Arts, and/or either Shadowlands Circle Necromancy or Terrestrial Circle Sorcery. Alternatively, you always have the option of finding a God or Demon or Celestial Exalt and talking them into using various powers to make you more than human, beyond having an Enlightened Essence. But such things often have...costs. Commonly significant service, often life long, among them.
Kyeudo
One Thousand Club
According to Scroll of the Monk, all you need to learn TMA is enlightened Essence. I ignore the merit in Scroll of Heroes, personally, as it makes little sense when interfacing it with Scroll of the Monk. Now, Scroll of the Monk does require the sifu to have mastered the TMA in question to teach it to mortals and must have Essence 3 and Martial Arts 5, so you can't just pick them up on any street corner.
Plague of Hats
Member
Since mortals:
• Can't make Combos.
• Have no Ox-Body Technique.
• Will always pay the mote surcharge for elemental aspects unless they are severely mutated.
• Pay through two noses to get Essence 3 in the first place.
• Are just generally punk-ass bitches.
There's really no reason to make martial arts so insanely hard for them to access, even as easy as Scroll of Heroes makes it for them to become enlightened (though, in this as in most regards, Scroll of Heroes should just be ignored).
• Can't make Combos.
• Have no Ox-Body Technique.
• Will always pay the mote surcharge for elemental aspects unless they are severely mutated.
• Pay through two noses to get Essence 3 in the first place.
• Are just generally punk-ass bitches.
There's really no reason to make martial arts so insanely hard for them to access, even as easy as Scroll of Heroes makes it for them to become enlightened (though, in this as in most regards, Scroll of Heroes should just be ignored).
Ledaal Kajiri
Two Thousand Club
Actually, all they need to do is master a single style and buy a single charm and that element no longer has the surcharge. Elemental Style Formulation removes the elemental surcharge for Terrestrial Martial Arts of a single element. Also, it's quite simple to learn styles that lack any element, such as Five Dragon Style, Even Blade Style, Crimson Pentacle Blade Style or Lightning Hoof Style.
I'm sorry I answered with actually completely cannon answers. They didn't ask about house rules, but instead about what the rules are. For a mortal game, generally I'm personally inclined to be somewhat liberal there, though with the rules in Scroll of Heroes I can make a mortal who already has the requisite Essence 3 and Martial Arts 5 and even charms at character creation. We skip the Merit, since I'll agree requiring a merit to purchase such seems foolish, similarly, treat Terrestrial Circle Sorcery or Shadowlands Circle Necromancy as having the same costs of 12/15 XP, instead of having a higher cost than other charms. But those are officially house rules, not an accurate answer to a basic rules question.
Of course, generally, if you're running an Enlightened or mixed Mortal game, you're liable to play with some house rules anyhow...though such isn't necessary. Really depends on the theme of the game. A game of Terrestrial Martial Arts kung fu action, and you're liable to do well to let people start with a couple charms for sure. A game of the price of learning Sorcery, then you're more likely to build up to it, not have someone already knowing it. Was fun running a batch of mortals working their way to become the gods of a few Terrestrial Styles which hadn't been completely forgotten, but which were without actual gods anymore, and were lost to memory save for a handful of spirits that still remembered the styles...and who were tasked to rebuild the styles, and once they had mastered such, and gotten significant schools arranged to keep them from being lost to memory again, were promised deification.
Plague of Hats
Member
Cthulhu_Wakes
Black Sun in a White World
That happens a lot around here. The snark is doled out regularly.
