Performance Tree

[scarletharlot]

Can we please either take out faultless ceremony or get it to do something useful. If we remove it I'll just choose a more diff charm, or if we edit it it's cool that sidereals have prayer-related performance charms, but ones that give mortals a +1 on their christening that lasts a few days (even if it has potential to be used creatively on an army) is not one I'm ever really going to be able to use in the game and this seems a shame.

Faultless ceremony and Perfection in Life are both a little toss, but perfection in life suits my character and at least I can use it on other pcs.



Also. Me and JD were considering the hearthstone I chose:

Jewel of the Celestial Mandarin:
Surrounds bearer with subtle aura of essence that causes gods, demons and elementals to regard with respect. Reduce difficulty of all social rolls with such creatures by 2 (min 1).

And it occurred to us that nearly all social rolls, and those inc in my charms, are about beating an MDV not a difficulty. How will this work? The stone must have an impact on social combat otherwise it'd be crap. For a level 2 hearthstone it could give 2 auto successes on social combat rolls or lower their DV by 1/2?

[Learned Hand]

Faultless Ceremony isn't great, but then there are lots of 1st level charms that you only take because they let you get better charms later on. Inexorable Advance and Unswerving Juggernaught Principle both spring to mind from this campaign, although the Solar performance charm that allows you to give yourself sfx with no mechanical benefit is probably the best example of this.

As for the hearthstone, I think it's useful if you use the social combat rules that are implied, rather than actually mentioned by stupid White Wolf people. Basically, according to canon, it's the same roll to provide somebody to lend me a fiver, as it is to persuade them to beat up a random child - in each case you have to beat their MDV. At times, they talk about difficulties of rolls, and I assume this is there attempt to take into account that people will need more persuading to beat up a child. It seems to act as a bonus to somebody's MDV. In a similar way, if you're trying to hide in plain sight the observer gets a couple of bonuses to their perception + awareness roll.

Actually... I don't remember mentioning this to anybody but it's the system I used for Exalted Modern and I think we may have discussed it then. It's also what I using for Scrolls of The Monk

So,
Persuading somebody to lend you a fiver = man + pre VS MDV
Persuading somebody to kill a baby = man + pre VS MDV + 5
Hiding behind a tree = Dex + Stealth VS per + awareness
Hiding behind a blade of grass = Dex + Stealth Vs Per + Awareness + 4 successes

If O uses those rules, then your hearthstone will help you a lot when you try to get Gods etc to do ridiculous things, which IIRC you tend to do a lot.

[scarletharlot]

I've never heard of those rules before, but if that's what we're using.

It'd still be nice to have faultless ceremony do something. I posted this after talking to O about the rubbishness of pointless charms that they couldn't bother thinking up something good for. Just because there are other rubbish charms elsewhere doesn't void my argument. Although I like the solar performance tree.

[bravesirrobin]

I once tried to make this case about the solar performance charm that LH mentioned, but I think that the winning argument from that discussion basically still applies. essentially the onus should be on the player to think up uses for charms, and that sometimes you have to take charms that are basically not very good for your character in order to get charms that are. sometimes this is dictated by the campaign and what it asks characters to do. but the charm trees do actually have some purpose behind them, even though we may get annoyed at them sometimes, and sometimes there is simply such a thing as a speed bump charm.

[Blackrat]

Feb 19, 2009 22:43:27 GMT bravesirrobin said:

essentially the onus should be on the player to think up uses for charms, and that sometimes you have to take charms that are basically

Quite so. Surely the point of that Solar Performance charm, for example, is to allow you to freeform stunt with the imagery?

I think there's a lot of focus on mechanics in our Exalted games, and I think we get bogged down in it at times - particularly given WW's shoddy editing / playtesting. Mechanics aren't everything.

[scarletharlot]

Ok so how shall I use faultless ceremony? Even for creation-heavy sidereals it pretty much tries and fails. I think the solar performance tree is awesome, as is that charm and when I played a character who had it I used it lots. How often is it likely to come up that a sidereal officiates over a mortal ritual anyway, let alone how often do we give a flying fuck whether they get a +1 for a few days after. I mean a diff 9 charm to bind an elemental to the well-being of an area is pretty joyless/pointless in gameplay (well unless you're essence 9) - unless you do it all the time it's unlikely to make much different and summon elemental is a hell of a lot easier so just buy a sorcerer if you aren't one.

The performance tree is good for the flexible excellency one, raising dodge and for the top charm, but Perfection in Life, Ice and Fire Binding and Faultless Ceremony are all pretty crap. They have sidereal flavour, but no real content. All three of them are theoretically in character for Pyramid, but I find it a bit much that half the charms are ones I will literally never use - well other than if I don't feel that I've rolled enough dice yet that session.

I disagree strongly with you if you think that 'speed bump', either badly thought out or well conceived but badly executed, charms should be some sort of unavoidable part of exalted. If we don't like something, we change it to make the story better. Or shall we bring the combo rules back? I really don't focus overly on mechanics, but I do notice that I could have a far more useful character, who could like do *anything* ever, with a different tree and I notice when I never use three of my charms.

To make them not pretty useless for nearly all players (again I can think of narrow circumstances where they could suit a particular story in a campaign - a king's politically tense marriage, an army about to fight a fearsome enemy who like to watch a dance show beforehand), I think perfection in life should have another minor effect, possibly in combat, like adding +1 to your side for a single action as they grow in confidence - possibly more with a roll; I think Faultless Ceremony should allow you to automatically make awesome prayer rolls, and I think Ice and Fire Binding should allow you to create an elemental who is bound to the prosperity of area for essence in months or to work at whatever the type of elemental you've created does (storm, pure water, fire) for some multiplier of essence ticks. That's what I think would make them not useless, but since they're (except ice and fire binding) very low level charms then maybe it would overpower them.

Obviously none of you agree so I'll drop it; I was kind of hoping that oneiros would reply to my post since I posted in response to a comment he made about such things.