Exalted 2e House Rules

Advancement

Experience is handled differently. Raising traits is a flat cost rather than a scaled cost. This is to encourage characters to not focus on high stats in character generation and be willing to spread out over time. Use the following table for XP Costs.

Trait XP Cost
Attribute 10XP
Ability 4XP
Specialty 2XP
Background 3XP
Virtue 8XP
Willpower 8XP
Charm (Favored) 4XP
Charm 6XP
Essence 20XP

Backgrounds

In general, backgrounds do not have to be purchased with experience if they come from actions taken in play. However, there's a good reason to do so. Any character may gain high Contacts or Resources through social charms or theft. If a character purchases them with experience, these backgrounds are relatively 'safe'. Unless a character does something really silly, the GM will not mess with them unless the player asks. If a player doesn't purchase them with experience, that money or those contacts can be screwed with, and while the player will have a chance to stop it, sometimes…well, things happen.

Charms

  • The Ox-Body Charm gives one extra -1, -2, and -4 health levels.
  • Characters may use one offensive charm in their attack actions. They may use one defensive charm per attack.
  • If characters wish to use more than one offensive or defensive charm, they may spend a willpower and do so. Charm combo rules must otherwise used, such as which charms are allowable together and so forth.

Combat

  • Incapacitated: Player characters (and some non-player characters) cannot be brought below incapacitated in a single attack. Once incapacitated, a character must be explicitly killed on their attacker's next action.

Health Levels

  • Every point of Stamina over 2 gives Exalted an extra -0 Health Level. Thus someone with Stamina 4 gets 2 extra -0 Health Levels.

Non-Player Characters

  • Extras: Extras only have one health level. Basically, if you do damage to them, they drop.
  • Statistics: Most non-player characters have far fewer scores than PCs in order to simplify building and running. In general, they should have the following statistics.
    • Combat (DV): This represents the character's average combat score using charms. The DV defaults to half the Combat score, though it could be lower at times.
    • Mental: This represents the character's average mental score using charms.
    • Physical: This represents the character's average non-combat physical score using charms.
    • Social (DV) This represents the character's average social score using charms. The DV defaults to half the Social score, though it could be lower at times.
    • Charms: List any non-combat, non-social charms the character might have, or special combat charms that might come up now and again like Heavenly Guardian Defense. The character can use that when appropriate.

Skills

  • The Craft skill is one skill. You must purchase a specialization for the strange or arcane Craft specialties like Magitech.
  • The Linguistics skill gives two language families per dot in the skill. Relevant language families are: Flametongue, Forest-Tongue, Guild Cant, High Realm, Low Realm, Old Realm, Primal Tongue, Riverspeak, Seatongue, Skytongue, Tribal Tongue.
    • Dialects: In order to speak a language in a particular dialect, a character must roll a Wits+Linguistics check and get three to five successes, depending on the difficulty of the dialect. If the character has purchased a specialty in the language, he does not have to roll. The GM may also require a Linguistics roll to speak in a specific rare dialect. The difficulty varies from 1 to 5 successes.
    • Primal Tongue: The language of the Fair Folk and Primordials.
    • Tribal Tongue: This language family represents various barbarian languages.

Thaumaturgy

For Exalts, Thaumaturgy degrees cost the same as a normal Occult specialty (2XP). Mortals pay triple this cost (6XP) per degree.

Charms

Solar Fire Attack
Cost: 1m per 2L; Mins: Lore 5, Essence 3; Type: Simple (Speed 4)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Holy, Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None

This charm permits a Solar to fire a bolt of solar fire toward a target. The bolt is targeted with Dexterity+Athletics or Dexterity+Archery, whichever is preferred, with an accuracy bonus equal to the Solar's Essence and a range of (Essence x 20) yards. The bolt inflicts 2L per mote spent up to a maximum number of motes equal to the Solar's Charisma. It deals aggravated damage verses creatures of darkness.