GURPS Exalted - Once More, From The Top

[Jürgen Hubert]

Athletics

Eagle-Wing Style
14/23/27/32/36/41/45/50/54/59 for levels 1-10
Prerequisite Skills: Acrobatics, Aerobatics, Flight, Flying Leap, Free Fall, Jumping, Parachuting

The Solar jumpts into the air and refuses to come down. He gains a flight speed equal to two times his Basic Speed, adding one-half his Basic Move for each additional level in the charm. To direct the flows of Essence, the Solar must keep one arm extended before him, rendering it useless for other activities. Furthermore, he cannot fly more than 30 feet above the ground, and must move at least 1/4th his top speed at all times. This charm costs 4 motes to activate and two to maintain per minute of use.

Statistics: Flight (Cannot Hover, -15%; Costs Fatigue, -20%; Low Ceiling (30 foot), -10%; Temporary Disadvantage (One Arm), -20%) [14]. A second level adds Link (+10%) as well as 0.5 levels of Enhanced Move (Air), also with Link and the limitations listed above [23]. Further levels add further half-levels of Enhanced Move (Air).


Descending Raptor Technique
Hard
Default: Prerequisite-2; cannot exceed prerequisite.

Steering his flight with his will alone, the Solar regains use of his second arm, allowing both arms to be used for other activities.


Hovering Sun Technique
Hard
Default: Prerequisite-2; cannot exceed prerequisite.

Looking upon the ground like the Unconquered Sun looks upon on Creation from the Day Star, the Solar can remain perfectly still in the air.


Soaring Eagle Technique
Hard
Default: Prerequisite-1; cannot exceed prerequisite.

This technique allows the Solar to fly as high as he likes, ignoring the usual flight ceiling.

[Tuoni]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Statistics: Flight (Cannot Hover, -15%; Costs Fatigue, -20%; Low Ceiling (30 foot), -10%; Temporary Disadvantage (One Arm), -20%) [14]. A second level adds Link (+10%) as well as 0.5 levels of Enhanced Move (Air), also with Link and the limitations listed above [23]. Further levels add further half-levels of Enhanced Move (Air).

Why the link? Enhanced move is always on by default, and if you wanted it to only apply to this charm and not any other form of flight you should use Accessibility:Eagle-Wing Style -10% instead.

Otherwise you're charging the player points for limiting their options.

Other then that it looks awesome.

Edit: Ah, didn't see you also added then limitations from flight. So yeah, Accessibility instead of link.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Tuoni

Why the link? Enhanced move is always on by default, and if you wanted it to only apply to this charm and not any other form of flight you should use Accessibility:Eagle-Wing Style -10% instead.

Otherwise you're charging the player points for limiting their options.

Other then that it looks awesome.

Edit: Ah, didn't see you also added then limitations from flight. So yeah, Accessibility instead of link.

Good point. Presumably, the Enhanced Move doesn't have the Costs Fatigue limitation then, though...

[Jürgen Hubert]

Another Athletics charm:


Feather-Foot Style
12/23/32/51/60/69/78/87/96 for levels 1-9
Prerequisite Skills: Acrobatics, Aerobatics, Flight, Flying Leap, Free Fall, Jumping.

The ground itself will not dare to cause the rightful rulers of Creation to fall down. This charm costs 4 motes for a minute of activation and four to maintain. The first level allows the Solar to keep his footing on any surface, no mater how narrow, and gives him all the other bonuses of the Perfect Balance advantage. The second level doubles his jumping distance, and the third level doubles it yet again. The fourth level allows him to push off from any surface for his jumps, even unstable ones like water (though lava and the like will still harm him), and only requiring him to touch the "ground" every five seconds. Each additional level doubles his jumping distance yet again.

Statistics: Perfect Balance (Costs Fatigue 4, -20%) [12]. With the second level, Perfect Balance gains Link (+10%), and a level of Super Jump (Costs Fatigue 4, -20%; Link, +10%) is added as well [23]. The third level adds another level of Super Jump [32], and the fourth level removes a level of Super Jump while adding Flight (Costs Fatigue 4, -20%; Link, +10%; Requires Surface, -20%) [51] - as Flight also doubles the character's speed, this means that there is no difference in jumping distance. Further levels add additional levels of Super Jump.


Monkey Leap Technique
Hard
Default: Prerequisite-5; cannot exceed prerequisite.

If you experience a fall or collision, you may roll versus the best of your DX, Acrobatics, or Jumping, at a penalty of -5 per multiple of Jumping Move by which your velocity exceeds your jumping Move (up to additional 15 points of this penalty may be bought off by Solars, as usual). Success means that you take no damage and rebound with 90% of your impact speed.


Soaring Crane Leap
Hard
Default: Prerequisite-5; cannot exceed prerequisite.

You can make midair course corrections. As long as you are airborne, treat your jumping Move as air Move.

[Kuroshima]

Jürgen, personally, I would make heavy use of Imbuements for an Exalted game. The Glorious Solar Bow, for example, would work much better if you used imbuements instead of your strange construction. Check Power-Ups 1: Imbuements, for the main Imbuement rules; and Perfect Defense (in Pyramid #3/4) for defensive Imbuements; with optionally Psi-Powered Imbuements (in Pyramid #3/12) for an example on how to split the Imbuement Skills into multiple powers and The Mystic Knight (in Pyramid #3/13) for 2 (3 if you count the one that is not suitable to DF, found in the Odds and Ends section of the issue) new imbuement skills, and a template for DF that uses Imbuements.

Really, I feel that having the ability to have your Zweihander (Fantasy-Tech version) cleave through solid steel on a 50 feep mech, if you spend a little of your energy, feel a lot like being able to to have your great daiklave severely hurt a warwalker if the Solar desides to invest a little essence in it...

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Jürgen, personally, I would make heavy use of Imbuements for an Exalted game. The Glorious Solar Bow, for example, would work much better if you used imbuements instead of your strange construction. Check Power-Ups 1: Imbuements, for the main Imbuement rules; and Perfect Defense (in Pyramid #3/4) for defensive Imbuements; with optionally Psi-Powered Imbuements (in Pyramid #3/12) for an example on how to split the Imbuement Skills into multiple powers and The Mystic Knight (in Pyramid #3/13) for 2 (3 if you count the one that is not suitable to DF, found in the Odds and Ends section of the issue) new imbuement skills, and a template for DF that uses Imbuements.

I've finally sat down and read Power-Ups 1, but while it is an interesting system, I feel it's not really appropriate for what I want:

- I really want a unified set of charm mechanics. The framework provided by GURPS Psionic Powers seems to work well enough for most applications, so I am hesitant to use something different for such an important aspect as attack mechanics.
- I feel it's not really appropriate for Solars. In general, they excel at using at mundane skills, and this in turn grants them magical powers that boost their skill use into the realms of the divine. Adding additional skills for their charms just seems wrong - if they should have to make skill rolls, it should be against their ordinary, mundane skills (with modifiers). And I don't really see a way of turning Imbuement skills into techniques...
- Finally, they don't have all the abilities I need - for instance, I couldn't find a basic damage enhancer anywhere in the list...

Really, I feel that having the ability to have your Zweihander (Fantasy-Tech version) cleave through solid steel on a 50 feep mech, if you spend a little of your energy, feel a lot like being able to to have your great daiklave severely hurt a warwalker if the Solar desides to invest a little essence in it...

Well, it's entirely in-genre, but Imbuements don't do that - the best they have is Armor Penetration, but even that only allows them to ignore armor on a Warstrider, and that doesn't do that much damage in itself...

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

I've finally sat down and read Power-Ups 1, but while it is an interesting system, I feel it's not really appropriate for what I want:

- I really want a unified set of charm mechanics. The framework provided by GURPS Psionic Powers seems to work well enough for most applications, so I am hesitant to use something different for such an important aspect as attack mechanics.
- I feel it's not really appropriate for Solars. In general, they excel at using at mundane skills, and this in turn grants them magical powers that boost their skill use into the realms of the divine. Adding additional skills for their charms just seems wrong - if they should have to make skill rolls, it should be against their ordinary, mundane skills (with modifiers). And I don't really see a way of turning Imbuement skills into techniques...
- Finally, they don't have all the abilities I need - for instance, I couldn't find a basic damage enhancer anywhere in the list...

Personally, I feel that cinematic skills and imbuement skills are a better match for the genres behind Exalted, but we can agree to disagree. The tie between charms and mundane skills is IMHO an artifact of the storyteller system, and not anything that should be carried over in a conversion. I would at least leave the Imbuement Skills as Martial Arts charms (and you already have a 3-step ladder: Imbue 1 (Terrestrial), Imbue 2 (Sidereal) and Imbue 3 (Celestial). Using a different subsystem might work to your advantage here, making Martial Arts distinct from baseline charms.

As for not having a base damage enhancer, that's not the province of Imbuement Skills, it's the province of more ST. The "Boosts basic damage" "Imbuement Skill" isn't an Imbuement Skill, it's Power Blow

Well, it's entirely in-genre, but Imbuements don't do that - the best they have is Armor Penetration, but even that only allows them to ignore armor on a Warstrider, and that doesn't do that much damage in itself...

The warstrider has both huge DR and huge HP. The DR renders it practically immune to mundane punishment, and the HP makes it last a while against supernatural punishment. Give a solar ST in the 40s, Weapon Master, an oversized weapon (check the rules for scaling weapons and armor in LTC2) so that the min-st of the weapon matches the ST of the solar, and Power Blow. You might consider looking at the fancy weapon materials found in DF8 and Fantasy Tech (A tempered glass weapon is something frightening in the hands of a weapon master with huge ST). Hell, at some point, you might consider giving Exalted the option to purchase Super Effort for some of their ST, probably as a charm, though this should only be applicable for very powerful exalted.

Allow me to show what I mean:

                                      Damage  Reach  Parry  Cost   Weight   ST
Grand Daiklaive (SM+3 Zweihander)  sw+21 cut    2-7     0F 22050    122.5  49† 
or                                thr+10 imp      7     0F                 49†

Make it tempered glass (+1/dice) and give it to a solar with Weapon Master, and ST 49. He will deal 7d+43 cut. If he Powerblows and triples his ST, he will deal 17d+72 cut. Once you factor in Penetrating Strike, to bypass DR, the warstrider is probably going to be missing a foot...

EDIT: Now, for defense, you might decide that the same metalurgy that allows 7 yard swords also allows for armor as thick as you need it, and extend the thicker plate rules in Low Tech all the way to infinity (you could call it artifact armor). DR 50 plate would cost $24500 for the chest, and weight 196 lbs. This will blunt most of of the damage from 7d+43 damage blows (leaving them as 7d-7, min 0/avg 17.5/max 35), and the Blunting Armor defensive imbuement skill can be used to double, triple or quadruple it, for DR 100, 150 or 200, making the 17d+72 attack survivable (DR 100 will leave the attack as 17d-28, min 0, avg 31.5, max 74, DR 150 and DR 200 will leave the attack as basically infective, as you can see here)

EDIT2: Against Penetrating Strike, the exalted can counter with Reinforce Armor. Again, I feel that the play of Power Blow vs DR-multiplying Imbuements, and of Penetrating Strike vs Reinforce Armor is a decent substitution to perfect attack vs perfect defense from Exalted.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Hmmm... Maybe Imbuement Skills would indeed work nicely for some Martial Arts, but in the end I think I will stick with my version for Solar charms - for those, I'd like to keep the number of dice rolls per attack to a minimum.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Hmmm... Maybe Imbuement Skills would indeed work nicely for some Martial Arts, but in the end I think I will stick with my version for Solar charms - for those, I'd like to keep the number of dice rolls per attack to a minimum.

That's the single biggest issue with Imbuements, that they add a lot of dice rolls to each and every attack.Of course, it would even be in genre to ask for all attacks to use combos, instead of single imbuement skills, with something akin to "roll for the lowest imbuement skill involved, at -1 per additional imbuement skill". You might even relax that a little, and make it so Transformation skills don't impose penalties, since it's one per attack.

[Jürgen Hubert]

I just had a thought: How about simply attaching all the Archery Charm techniques to Weapon Master (ranged weapons) or Heroic Archer?