Dice Pools, Dice Adders, and Automatic Successes

According to the Writers for Exalted 2nd Edition.

• Dice Pool are capped by whatever Exalted’s Excellency says.  Solar = Attribute + Ability, Lunar = Attribute (or Attribute + Essence during Fury), Dragon-Blooded = Ability + Specialty, etc.
• Max DV with Charm added is its max dice pool / 2 round up.  E.g. for Solar’s Dodge DV is RoundUp[(Dex + Dodge + Essence + Dex + Dodge) / 2].  Which is the max DV regardless from any combination of Charms. 
• 2nd Excellency is the only automatic success adder that is capped by dice pool.
• All other automatic success adders are only capped by the specific charm’s description.  There is no cap on the number of successes combinations of charms (other than second success) can add. 
• Successes added via other charms, unless specific noted in the Charms, do not count towards the dice cap for 2nd Excellency.

So in another words DV has max cap.  Dice Pool have max cap.  2nd Excellency Successes have Max Cap.  Other Charms adding Automatic Successes have no max cap.

It makes the Martial Arts Charm slightly more useful but not nearly as much.

It is also mentioned that the last 2 points are the reason why Automatic Successes adding Charms are so rare.

So lets use that system for now?  Unless you guys have different opinion on the subject.

Hardness and Touch Attacks

In combat Hardness will guard against touch attacks.

If the attacker’s potential damage (Strength + Weapon Damage) is insufficient to pierce Hardness they would do not be allowed to use touch attacks upon the target.

However, an ineffective touch attack may still go through if the attacker comes up with a 2 dice stunt.  He however gains no bonus dice nor regain any essence/willpower for such an stunt but is now allowed to make the touch attack normally.

This is effect is applicable as long as the defender has the behavior that dictates he avoid being touched – which is the automatic assumption when in combat.

Touch attacks most of time will just be Strength.  However weapons with “M” or “N” tags can add their damage to the calculation for Touch vs. Hardness. 

The “M” tag weapons are only counted when the wielder is using Martial Arts to attack (and not melee).  This exception is not to be confused with Form Weapons, since not all Form Weapons have the “M” tag – namely Swords.

Example

Tyr decides to use a Dire Chain to make his attack.  Dire Chain has the “M” tag, as long as he is using Martial Arts ability to make his touch attack roll he can add the weapon damage to his Strength to decide if he punctured Hardness.  This will be true if he is using Smash Fist, or Armored Cestus, or even Spike Harness.

So his Strength (2) + Dire Chain (+8B) = 10B worth of Damage.  This means he is only 1 die damage short of puncturing through Super-Heavy Artifact Plate.

Keep in mind the assumption is not that the Martial Arts weapon is the touch attack.  It means the character uses the Martial Arts weapon to puncture through Hardness and follows through with his Touch. 

E.g. Tyr strapped the chain to the defender’s arms and pulled him off balance enough to be able to go through the invisible barrier given by the artifact armor and inject his essence into the target.

As with all Rules, it is a frame work that needs to be combined with common sense.  If the target is on the other side of a chasm, even if Tyr did wrap his chains around the target he obviously cannot make a touch attack because he can’t reach over and touch him.

Defensive Charm Updates

To metigate the “Everyone hold charm use till someone use a non-defensive charm” problem, I am going to make the following update.

You are now allowed to use Reflexive Defensive Charms (in the appropriate steps) even after you already activated another Charm for that turn.

However, doing so will carry a surcharge of 2 Willpower and additional mote cost equal to the minimum Essence Requirement of the Charm.

Once the charm is activated it is then considered “in combo” and subsequent activate of the charm falls under combo rules.

This should allow people to use non-defensive charms more freely and is harsh enough as to not take away the value of Combo.

Obviously this does not really apply to Dragon-Blooded because they can already use Reflexive Charms.  But since this form of Defensive Charm use has 2 WP surcharge each time its used, I see no balancing problems.

Example

Solar A, decided to activate his Form Charm.  That is his Charm use for the round.

Abyssal B, decides to use magical flurry against the Solar. 

Solar A, figures he cannot survive against the onslaught decides to use Perfect Dodge against the Flurry.  He would spent 2 WP and 5 Motes to Use the perfect dodge charm against the first attack of the flurry.  Then every subsequent dodge will cost him 3 motes for the rest of the action.

Adaptation in Regards to Patterning

To adopt this system to patterning, subsequent use of a these charms will not cost 1 mote.  Instead it will cost 2 motes. 

So in the above example, the subsequent use of the dodge charm against the other attacks in the flurry will cost 2 motes and not 1.