Exalted Sorcery

Introduction

Do you want to play a Sorcerer? Don’t know why you should, or why you shouldn’t, make a Sorcerer or a dabbler? Want to know what spells you need to handle carefully, lest your GM smack you around? I’ll be going over the basic mechanics of Sorcery, what they mean in practice, and then some comments on the spells themselves and Sorcery in general.

To use Sorcery you need to know at least one of the three Sorcery Charms: Terrestrial, Celestial, or Solar. These are Occult Charms, and they have high essence requirements: 3,4, and 5. You must also know at least one spell, which you learn like a charm but with a much longer learning time required. You then spend an appropriate amount of willpower: 1,2, or 3 depending on the Sorcery Charm being used, and then spend the essence cost of a spell that you know of the appropriate Circle. Terrestrial Sorcery lets you cast Terrestrial spells, and so forth. I do not believe that you can learn spells from a higher circle than you know the Charms to, and you cannot learn a Sorcery Charm higher up the ladder than your Exalt Type. Terrestrials can only learn Terrestrial Sorcery, Lunars and Sidereals are limited to Celestial and Terrestrial Sorcery, and Solars can learn any.

Once you have spent the will and motes for the Sorcery Charm and spell, you immediately spend an action to shape the spell. Until the spell is cast, you may not take any other action, or split your action, or use any Charm. You must depend on others to defend you, on persistent defenses that you put up earlier, or on armor, artifacts, and your anima power. You cannot move or talk either. If you take damage, there is a roll to see if you lose control of the spell, and botches have side effects similar to countermagic. If you are casting a Terrestrial spell, only one turn of shaping is necessary. You may cast the spell on your next action, which still forces the restrictions of spell usage on the character. Only on the turn after casting may the character act normally. Celestial spells require 2 shaping actions before casting, and Solar spells take 3 shaping actions. Some spells are rituals, that may take much longer, and during a ritual any motes spent on the spell are considered committed until the ritual ends.

There are also countermagic spells, special spells that can be used with a single action. It still counts as casting normally during the turn the countermagic is used, so no splitting actions and no other charms. Countermagic can be used in one of two ways. Either it breaks a single spell being cast or in effect in its radius, or it shields you from any incoming spells until the end of your next turn. You suffer a penalty to combat actions during the next turn. Spells broken by countermagic of the same circle shatter into storms of essence, doing damage based on the circle of the spell broken. Higher circle countermagic snuffs out spells of a lower circle completely.

Ok, that’s the mechanics for Sorcery. Now, what those mechanics mean. First, sorcery is very will intensive. Only somebody who uses combos a lot will burn will faster. They are also mote intensive, but since you can only cast at best once every two rounds the total mote usage isn’t extraordinary compared to combat. You are very vulnerable when casting. You cannot depend on armor alone to protect you or attackers will just split for ping damage, nor can you tie down others to be constantly protecting you. That leaves persistent defenses. All characters who intend to cast in combat need at least one persistent defense, be it Flow Like Blood, Five Fold Bulwark Stance, Ebon Shadow Form, and others. Also, the longer you spend casting the more likely the opposition is going to spend more effort on stopping you, as canny opponents will know when you are casting a Celestial or Solar spell due to the added shaping actions. Countermagic is often the cheapest spell in the circle, so Sorcery against a Sorcerer is generally a loosing proposition in a one on one fight. You are going to spend more motes throwing spells than the other guy is going to spend countering them. The exception is Emerald Countermagic, for which the area effect version is quite expensive compared to the average spell cost in the Terrestial Circle. Out of combat, the social and utility spells are very expensive compared to their charm equivalents. Also, there is no way to hide casting, so many people are going to be very wary of dealing with a casting Sorcerer, which is a problem that social charms do not have.

Now, for a spell overview. First, combat. Sorcery is not very good at combat. Most attack spells have normal attack pools with no way to boost them. They usually only attack once, so perfect defenses are very effective as you spend less than half the cost of the spell in defending against it. A target with a pair of persistent defenses up (Solars/Abyssals) or somebody with a high dice pool (Lunars) is nearly immune to most attack spells. Damage is usually decent, but the best way to compare is to take the cost for the spell and compare the spell’s effect to a basic combo with the same cost. Excellent Strike Hungry Tiger Technique or Wise Arrow Fiery Arrow Attack or Dazzling Flare Attack with a good artifact weapon are appropriate comparisons to make. Then recognize that the Sorcerer is only attacking once every few rounds.

Next we will cover buff spells, spells that improve the target in some way. Several of these can only be cast on the Sorcerer. These are pretty good spells, as most have no charm equivalents, but they require setup time as they don’t last very long. Also, if your GM believes that countermagic breaks all spells in its area of effect they are mostly useless as a single countermagic will drop every buff spell you have up. There is canon backing this version of countermagic, as the actual spell text is unclear. The buff spells that only affect the caster are great for dabblers, characters who only learn a few spells to augment their combat or other abilities. Social spells are a mixed lot, some are very nice, some are distinctly inferior to printed charms. And then there are a lot of spells that do strange things, and their quality is very variable.

One important thing to remember about casting significant duration spells everyday is that you only recover, at most, 2 and a half will every day on average. That means that casting more than a pair of terrestrial spells or a single celestial spell everyday will cause a net loss of willpower over time. Keeping more spells than this up every day is not viable unless your GM allows you to stunt taking a bath and eating breakfast.

Terrestrial Sorcery

There are many that are Good, given the right circumstances. The following are either spells that cannot be duplicated by charms, or have effects in areas that it is rare to have to PC put charms into. Ritual of Elemental Empowerment, Incantation of Effective Restoration, The Eye and the Mouth, Burning Eyes of the Offender, Summoning of the Harvest, Tongue of the Elemental Spirit, Sorcerer’s Irresistible Puppetry. Also, Death of Obsidian Butterflies and Flying Guillotine are the best of the combat spells, but they still have their problems. Song of the Waves is damn good, and probably the 2nd best combat spell in this circle. There are also two that fall, barely, in the ‘Destroyer of Campaigns’ category. First is Peacock Shadow Eyes. This little gem can nearly replace a social character if used often and the right way. “I am an important customer, give me a discount.” “I am a much better ally than that Cathak, he’s going to stab you in the back.” “These are not the droids you are looking for.” So long as you stick to stuff that is hard to present clear evidence to the contrary, you can make the things that you tell people with this spell real with some time, intelligence, and work. Second is Virtuous Guardian of Flame. This provides a persistent defense to those Exalts that can’t get one, or can’t get a good one, or only have a dodge one, i.e. Terrestrials, Sidereals, and Lunars. Second, it makes you immune to non-magical ranged attacks. I don’t like the Savant and Sorcerer change of committing the motes, I would have rather weakened the spell or moved it to the Celestial Circle. But the Book of 3 Circles version can clearly be overpowered in a non-Solar/Abyssal game.

Celestial Circle Sorcery

Blood of Boilling Oil is nice against lower essence targets; Incomparable Body Arsenal is amazing on Martial Artists. Cloud Trapeze, Swift Spirit of Winged Transportation, and others. More important are the three spells that fall into the ‘Destroyer of Campaigns’ category. They are Spawning of Monsters, Threefold Binding of the Heart, and Imbue Amalgam. Intelligent abuse of these three spells can send the power of the caster spiraling out of control by way of extremely powerful minions that can be good at essentially anything. Imbue Amalgam makes the strongest minions, but those made by Spawning of Monsters are not vulnerable to countermagic. Threefold Binding of the Heart turns enemies in slaves, so long as you keep your charisma up. All are amazingly strong. Magma Kraken almost fits here, and it is the lord and master of all combat spells due to its persistent effect.

Solar Circle Sorcery

Interestingly, while all of the Solar spells are useful due to their significant power levels and total lack of encroachment by charms, they are not as game-breaking as the Unholy Trio: Spawning of Monsters, Threefold Binding of the Heart, and Imbue Amalgam. Except for one. Evocation from the Mirror is much like a better version of Threefold Binding of the Heart, and has the same enemies into slaves effect while being much harder to break. However, the worst spell in the Solar Circle is Loyal Golem. I suggest allowing extra motes spent on the spell, which is implied by its variable cost, work as experience that you can spend on the golem. That way the thing is useful for non-Dabblers.

Terminology

Speaking of Dabblers, I’ll now explain my terminology. A Sorcerer is somebody with a wide range of spells in many areas of effect. A Dabbler is a character who takes a handful of spells, usually but not always either buff spells or ones out of the ‘Destroyer of Campaigns’ category, and uses them to enhance their current specialty. A combat character with Invulnerable Skin of Bronze, Unbreakable Bones of Stone, and Virtuous Guardian of Flame is a Dabbler, and a very effective one. Similarly, a social character with Shadow Peacock Eyes and some of the other (few) social spells is a Dabbler and also a very effective one. Dabblers tend to be more powerful than Sorcerers, mainly because Charms are more powerful and/or more flexible than spells except for a few areas. Taking the spells that deal with those few areas and charms elsewhere is more efficient than taking a lot of spells.

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Original Author: TheGrog on RPG.net