Editing Solar Exalted (section)

====Martial Artists and Sorcerers====
Martial Artists and Sorcerers require somewhat different charm picks from regular exalted; the unusual way their abilities and/or charms work merits special attention. 

''Martial Artists'' 
Solar martial artists are in something of a strange situation when it comes to picking abilities and charms: Martial arts provides both unarmed and armed combat options (in this, it is similar to Brawl) and the charms have effects commonly associated with several other abilities (notably Lore, Occult, Dodge and resistance, depending on the martial arts tree). Also, a solar martial artist has the problem that their non martial arts charm options are often more attractive, as they tend to be more powerful or wide reaching in effect. However, the wide range of effects available within a single tree makes up for less directly powerful charms. 

Overall, martial artists still want to have a broad selection of defensive charms, with the three charm guideline still applying. Another good guideline for the dedicated Martial artist is to buy all the charms up to and including the form charm at character creation; the pre form charms tend to be slightly underpowered, while the form is dead on power level, and the post form charms are slightly overpowered. Buying up to the form gives a wide range of effects for a starting martial artist, and generally provides at least two charms to combo together early on. It?s also worth noting that taking much more than the form at character creation tends not to pay off in the same way as taking a large number of melee charms; you sacrifice flexibility for domination of a single niche. It is important to remember, however, that a very competent Solar martial artist takes time to build, usually 20-30 exp points, by which point you should be deep enough in your chosen tree to have access to good abilities, and powerful combos. Remember too, to factor in whether your chosen martial arts style allows armour to be worn with it, when choosing defensive charms: A naked (comparatively) martial artist may need a stronger active defence than an armoured one. It?s also worth stressing again that a Solar martial artist who picks only Celestial level martial artists will not have the same raw power of a solar Brawler or Meleeist, but will have far, far more flexibility in the effects of his charms. 

''Sorcerers''
Sorcery is the area where the Solar Exalted excel best, their large essence pools make them more capable than other terrestrial and celestial level sorcerers, and only they have access to the most powerful magic in creation: Spells of the Solar Circle. 

Overall, as a starting Sorcerer, a 4/3/3 charm split between sorcery/combat/non combat charms is a good guideline: It gives you Terrestrial Circle Sorcery and three spells, three combat charms to be split between offence and defence, and three other charms to be used to broaden your abilities. 

As far as spell picks go, the only spell which is really necessary is Emerald Countermagic: It is the spell to take sorcery to get: The ability to shut down enemy sorcerers as they cast is not to be underestimated, especially when you consider how powerful even terrestrial spells are. As far as other spell picks go, check what you want out of sorcery; want to be the best battlefield sorcerer of a generation, take Storm of Obsidian Butterflies. Sorcerer-savant who searches for ancient texts; The Eye and the Mouth. It is also important to consider how your spells interact with your other charms: You don?t necessarily need a powerful defensive charm if you can cast Invulnerable Skin of Bronze against powerful opponents. From your three combat charms, taking two defensive and one offensive is a good rule of thumb if you want to be effective in a fight aside from sorcery. For the non combat charms, naturally the non sorcery occult charms are very useful (especially All Encompassing Sorcerers Sight) and social charms will help overcome the in setting stigma associated with sorcerers in some areas of creation. Overall, specialising in the broad area of -the unusual and occult- isn not a bad idea, as this vague area includes most of the abilities associated with the Twilight caste, except Craft.

This brings up another benefit of sorcery: the knowledge of magic to craft powerful artefacts: If you decide to take Crafts as a sorcerer, the combination of high crafts and the high occult needed to buy sorcery gives an excellent starting dice pool for artefact creation.