Editing Solar Exalted (section)

===Dots on the sheet===
When building a Solar character, one of the things to remember is you have a fairly large number of points to play with. Your character can be staggeringly competent in one area and still be able to hold his own in others. Naturally this offers a fair bit of freedom for character generation. 
First, look at your attributes. You get a fair number of points to put into these too, so the biggest decision is what to make your primary and secondary attribute set. Generally a frontline combat character should have high physical stats, a savant or sorcerer should have high mental stats and a socialite or religious icon style character should have high social attributes. This doesn?t however mean that that section has to be their primary attribute set, the secondary set gives just enough points to be very competent in that area (as opposed to the staggering competence of the primary attribute set). Either way, it?s generally a good idea to have physical as either primary or secondary, or sink some bonus points into increasing your attributes; Exalted is an action game, and not being physically capable of the impressive stunts you?d expect to be able to do can be annoying. Again, there are exceptions to this, it?s a guideline at best. 

====Abilities====
A good idea at this stage is to look over the Charms section of the book (and the charm picking guide of this 101)and pick a few you like the look of, then note their minimum requirements, so you don?t have to point juggle too much at the next stage. Picking your favoured abilities is extremely important, as you can buy dots in them for less, and you get discounted experience costs to increase them, and charms in them cost less. Ideally you want a combat ability (archery, brawl, martial arts, melee, thrown) and dodge, if they are not already caste abilities. This is because you will need to be able to hit your enemies, and cheap increases and charms helps this immensely, and dodge is useful to pretty much everyone (there are exceptions, but I?ll get into those later...) Generally, picking one of the social abilities (presence, socialise, bureaucracy) is also a good idea, a fast tongue can avoid many dangerous situations, especially when combined with the phenomenally powerful social charms of the Solars. 
So, the first things you should buy are the prerequisites for the charms you have picked. Remember, however, that to buy an ability at 4 or more, you need to spend bonus points. Then you can spread any remaining points around. As a general rule of thumb, to be competent enough to be chosen as a Solar Exalted, you should have either one ability at 5, and one or two at 3+, or two abilities at 4 and a few at 3. However, this isn?t a hard and fast rule, more a way to get the most out of those starting points. Specialities are a good way to increase an ability that would otherwise be lower, or to push an ability to the limits of mortal competence, in certain areas. Picking specialities for favoured abilities is very cost effective in terms of adding basic dice to your pools, but when it comes to adding to those pools with charms (such as the dice adder charms in the melee tree) specialities don?t count to the attribute + ability maximum addition. 

====Virtues====
In some ways, these four simple stats are amongst the most important to your character; They influence the way he acts in a broad swathe of situations, they can dramatically increase a characters prowess for a short period of time, and most importantly, they define how the great curse of the Exalted manifests. You have only seven points to distribute here, so doing it according to character is the order of the day. Pick what you would like to play: A cold, calculating mercenary captain would have high conviction and valour, but a low compassion, and possibly low temperance (maybe behind the iron exterior he hides a liking for hard liquor). The best recommendation for picking virtues is go with what feels right, since it?s down to how you want to roleplay the character. 

====Essence====
This begins at two, if you intend to play a sorcerer, remember Essence 3 is needed, as terrestrial circle sorcery requires it. However, I would recommend taking essence 3 to all starting characters, the benefit it gives outweighs the bonus point cost.
No if it suits your character to have three essence, have three, if not, don't.

====Backgrounds====
Several of the backgrounds available to Solar characters can be relatively easily picked up during play: Followers can be picked up by anyone with decent social abilities, Resources by anyone with good Larceny and Stealth (and no morals). Familiars, at least at lower levels, can be picked up with basic survival charms. Influence, backing and contacts simply accrue through play, without any specific effort to get them. The big reason to buy these backgrounds straight out is simple: You begin play with them, no effort at all has to be expended to get them. This can be very important, since generally you will want to be doing more heroic things than bankrolling your expeditions, or training a pet. 
*Followers can be useful if your storyteller allows them to be more capable than the average man on the street (or in the jungle or whatever), but otherwise, they can be more of a hindrance than anything else, unless you?re feeling particularly heartless and you want a meat shield. 
*Resources is a very campaign dependant background; either you will pretty much require it, or it?ll be a nice extra. One thing to remember is that there is a comprehensive price list at the back of the core book (pg 324 onwards) and that a purchase of equal to your resources value permanently reduces your resources by one. This means if your Storyteller is using resources for the purchasing of starting equipment, you may want to stock up on it. 
*Familiar is, at higher levels, a fairly useful background that can be difficult to get in play; the familiar is a magical creature linked to the characters essence. At lower levels, the familiar has no interesting powers, and is basically a normal animal. At higher levels, however, the familiar gains some interesting abilities; the ability to share senses with it can provide excellent spying possibilities, and the ability to drain some essence from it can be useful. 
*Influence is one thing Solars can guarantee gaining through play: Being one of the most powerful entities in creation (at least potentially) means some folks will listen to you, and the incredible social prowess of the Solars means that listening is the first step to following. 
*Backing and Contacts essentially achieve the same thing in the game world: Give you access to people and things to make your life easier. Both require some sort of recompense for the access, and both can be advantages and drawbacks. 

Backgrounds that are definitely worth picking up at character creation: 
*Allies: Allying with someone is worth a couple stories by itself, since allies are extremely close friends, and the default power level is a starting solar character. 
*Artefact: Orichalcum artefacts are very difficult to come by, since the setting assumes that any known orichalcum artefacts are either heavily guarded, in the hands of someone important, or lost to the world. 
*Manse: Unguarded manses are very rare, so to get a manse in play generally involves evicting the current owners. While this may be fun, it certainly isn't easy, since manse owners are either fae, Exalts or spirits, and as such can present a challenge to a competent solar circle, especially if they're fighting on their home turf. 
*Mentor: Having someone show you the ropes of being an exalt is worth its weight in orichalcum and that is only part of what the mentor can do. 
A good way to break up your backgrounds is to think of every background dot as what would be a single story's worth of play time in game, since that?s about how long it takes to build up one background dot.