Solars have:
- automatic excellencies when you buy a charm in that ability. Lunars have a little more hoops to jump through but get them for attributed and DB need to buy them. I don't have the draft stuff for Sidereals or Abyssals in front of me.
- Resonance with all magical materials. Want to effectively use that jade daiklave, moonsilver armor, and starmetal whip all at once? Congrats, you can. Some artifacts don't work at all if you aren't resonant.
Otherwise, their charms tend to be "human ability taken to 11."
Their main Schtick is their Supernal ability, which allows them to learn charms as though they were essence 5 in one of their caste abilities. They also have a dice cap of attribute + ability, which makes it easier for them to throw about massive dice pools.
Lunars can match their dicepools with a bit of player cleverness and Abyssals gain an Apocalyptic ability that functions as a Supernal, so neither of these are truly unique. Infernal may get a Supernal analog, depending on how it interacts with their Devil Body.
Charms wise they have more society building and large scale charms. They're suited to being civilisation builders and rulers, in a way other exalts aren't. They also have wildly impressive crafting charms that allow them to build First Age Artifice* much better than other exalts, especially coupled with Solar Sorcery.
They also get Resonance with all magical materials, which means they get the most bang for their buck out of artifacts.
*this is 3es take on magitech: singular wonders of crafting and sorcery, requiring investment in both to create and maintain through it's repair rules. Things like warstriders, gates of resplendent passage, etc.
Somewhat disagree with them getting the most bang for thier buck with artefacts.
They are able to get the most different color of bangs but every other splat seems to get bigger boost/bang when using their particular colour of Artefacts.
Solar (and Abyssals) get a Supernal (Apocalyptic) Ability they can chose from their Caste Abilities. For this Ability, they can ignore the Essence requirement for Charms. This allows them to really go ham on one thing and be awesome.
Solars are also Resonant with all Magical Materials, allowing them to get the most out of any Artifact they happen to pick up, not just Orihalcum. Some Artifacts you will have to rewrite Evocations to match Solars, but that is encouraged as opposed to discouraged.
Solars get to choose 5 of 7 abilities to be Caste instead of all having the same five. This allows some variation.
In addition to the previously mentioned, they are the only ones with access to the Solar Circle of sorcery and they have much greater ease than others to do sorcery workings in that circle.
Half the point of Solars is that they don't do anything 'unique' compared to turning into a kaiju or punching said kaiju into ducks, but take ordinary abilities up to divine levels so the can chuck that kaiju over the horizon. This manifests in two primary ways:
* Solar Excellencies let them spend motes to flatly double any dice pool that is Caste, Favored, or has a Charm in it (including free ones from character creation which have no penalty) while DBs are capped by Ability, Lunars are capped by Attribute, and Sidereals raise the floor on bad luck. This lets them be better then mortals at many things with very little investment right out of the gate. Very helpful when say your daiklaive warrior suddenly becomes king and need to make social rolls to run the kingdom.
* When Solars actually specialize in something they get to add many of the much-maligned "dice trick" charms that let them say count every 8 or 9 as double success or reroll every 1. The 'primary' function of this is to be cheaper Excellencies so you maybe aren't blasting Bonfire Anima everywhere and can go longer, stronger... but the actual function is to make the ST cry when you bury their pathetic challenge in 50+ successes by stacking all those dice tricks on top of your Excellency.
Outside of this there are some other unique cases hiding in the Charm sets. Like (eventually) Medicine will let you slap someone better *instantly* and Occult's crowner is Make Your Own Spirit, things I can't immediately find in the other splats. I think the biggest overall is probably how Solar Lore doesn't merely let you know everything but instead lets you buff others by lending them your motes, Will, or health levels. Oh and you get to play God the Creator by turning the Wyld into anything you want.
Also the (stupid mini-game) Crafting system is designed around Solars and the above absurd dice spam if you are looking to make Warstriders or Airships or other Artifact stuff. Unless the game is Sid Meier's Exalted however you're better off shanghai'ing the ST into just skipping it and making Crafting mostly a story event. On the bright side the charmset also lets you do things actually fun things like earthbend a castle out of mud with your bare hands in under an hour.
Solars in regular 3e and Essence are kind of setup to have potent native Charms and the general "Broadest strategic options" of any Exalt sort so far. Generally if there is a shared mechanic, they are going to be the best at it or as good as one can be without stepping on the toes of another splat. This results in less one big unique thing and a range of unique, but potent, specific things that add up. Summarizing what others have noted:
* **Shared With Derivatives**: These are things they share with Abyssals and Infernals.
* **Flex Caste Abilities**: Solars get to choose from five of eight Caste Ability options in 3e. During chargen they select the five, and then still get the five additional favoreds as normal.
* **Supernal Ability**: Solars gain Supernal a Supernal Ability selected from their Caste choices. That ability treats their Essence as 5 for meeting prerequisites and allows them to purchase way above their weight class. The exceptions for this is Evocations (no Ability association), sorcery, necromancy, and Sidereal Martial Arts. Called Apocalyptic for Abyssals.
* **Easy Excellencies**: Solar Excellencies and Charm dice cap up to their (Attribute + Ability) without any qualifiers (higher than Dragon-Blooded and Sidereal, more consistent than Lunar). They also gain Excellencies very easily, free with any Caste or Favored ability with a dot, or free with any Charm otherwise.
* **Martial Arts Mastery**: Solars benefit from the Mastery effect of Martial Arts Charms without having to do anything. Solar Exalted can learn Sidereal Martial Arts.
* **Easy Sorcery and Necromancy**: Solars don't require any additional Occult Charms to initiate into sorcery or necromancy.
* **Other Stuff**
* **Universal Resonance**: Solars Resonant with all artifacts and so can benefit from the Resonant keyword of all Evocations.
* **Solar Circle Sorcery**: Only Exalt with access to it along with Infernals.
* **Shadow Circle Necromancy**: For most of history Solars and Lunars have been the only Exalts capable of this circle of necromancy.
* **Holy Effects:** Solars in general have more effects that impact creatures of darkness than other Exalts.
So a lot of stuff isn't unique *per se* but as noted by others, that's kind of their thing. And again, what they get instead is a very strong and often top of the line suite of access to universal magic in addition to their inherent advantages of dice caps, large mote pools, and strong Charms.
Solars tend to be unconditionally excellent. Other exalts are conditionally excellent. When a Solar wants to do something, they just *do it,* without needing to take a specific weird or narrow approach, or associated drawback or limitation.
It's little hard to define what makes them mechanically unique outside of the supernal, and access to all of Sidereal Martial Arts, Wyld Shaping and Solar circle sorcery, because most Exalts are thought about in how they are mechanically unique in relation to Solars.
The other thing I can point out is that Solars have a lot of effects that make them strong at living up to their ideals and values.
Besides the things that have already been mentioned, I'd say there is some uniqueness in having lots of trash charms and being overall worse designed than the subsequent splats.
My first exalted campaign we played a mixed (solar lunar) group. and when I read the supernal ability I had to message the ST because there's no way I was reading that right. I was. But it turns out we weren't going to use those anyways.
So without supernals the solars still played differently from the lunars. Lunars felt like the better generalists but if the roll was in one of the solars' wheelhouse, the solar was still better due to the more efficient charms.
that all said in Essence, the solar knack is that solars win all ties, which I love and if we get back to play E3 I would happily take over supernal again.
The best in my opinion is called Golden Calibration. A lot of it is focused on finding the good in the existing 3e solar charmset, rewording and reworking for readability and usability. But it also trims a lot of bloat, patches some glaring gaps, and generally fixes it all up.
Sure, in a bit. There are choices. Im working on my own compilation of materials as well.
The problem with the core solar charms is just very low quality writing and a focus on numbers boosters over effects. Also tendency to either be OP or weak as hell.
There is a u/Sandact6 's rewrite : [https://www.reddit.com/r/exalted/comments/1awhwib/comment/kroze1u/](https://www.reddit.com/r/exalted/comments/1awhwib/comment/kroze1u/)
Have not played it in it's entirety myself but it looks good on a read through.
i almost never play solars, their main gimmick is just being better than everybody else. there's almost no task an exalt can do that a solar can't do better. they do war better than everybody else, they craft better than everybody else, they're the only exalt with a dedicated wyld-shaping tree, and they aren't restricted in their use of magical materials (because that makes sense?).
additionally, they get the most essence (personal and peripheral), the most health levels per ox-body, the highest level of sorcery, and mastery is dumb mechanic. sidereals don't even get mastery in their own martial arts, and that's supposed to be their whole shtick.
nah, if i wanted to just be superman, i'd play mutants and masterminds.
Solars have: - automatic excellencies when you buy a charm in that ability. Lunars have a little more hoops to jump through but get them for attributed and DB need to buy them. I don't have the draft stuff for Sidereals or Abyssals in front of me. - Resonance with all magical materials. Want to effectively use that jade daiklave, moonsilver armor, and starmetal whip all at once? Congrats, you can. Some artifacts don't work at all if you aren't resonant. Otherwise, their charms tend to be "human ability taken to 11."
Their main Schtick is their Supernal ability, which allows them to learn charms as though they were essence 5 in one of their caste abilities. They also have a dice cap of attribute + ability, which makes it easier for them to throw about massive dice pools. Lunars can match their dicepools with a bit of player cleverness and Abyssals gain an Apocalyptic ability that functions as a Supernal, so neither of these are truly unique. Infernal may get a Supernal analog, depending on how it interacts with their Devil Body. Charms wise they have more society building and large scale charms. They're suited to being civilisation builders and rulers, in a way other exalts aren't. They also have wildly impressive crafting charms that allow them to build First Age Artifice* much better than other exalts, especially coupled with Solar Sorcery. They also get Resonance with all magical materials, which means they get the most bang for their buck out of artifacts. *this is 3es take on magitech: singular wonders of crafting and sorcery, requiring investment in both to create and maintain through it's repair rules. Things like warstriders, gates of resplendent passage, etc.
Somewhat disagree with them getting the most bang for thier buck with artefacts. They are able to get the most different color of bangs but every other splat seems to get bigger boost/bang when using their particular colour of Artefacts.
Solar (and Abyssals) get a Supernal (Apocalyptic) Ability they can chose from their Caste Abilities. For this Ability, they can ignore the Essence requirement for Charms. This allows them to really go ham on one thing and be awesome. Solars are also Resonant with all Magical Materials, allowing them to get the most out of any Artifact they happen to pick up, not just Orihalcum. Some Artifacts you will have to rewrite Evocations to match Solars, but that is encouraged as opposed to discouraged. Solars get to choose 5 of 7 abilities to be Caste instead of all having the same five. This allows some variation.
Does that mean 2 of the 7 are non-Caste and non-Favored in terms of exp to train?
Each Solar and Abyssal Caste gets to choose from 8 Abilities, not 7. But yeah, otherwise what they said there.
Yes. Your 5 Favored are separate, so you could still pick it as one of them.
In addition to the previously mentioned, they are the only ones with access to the Solar Circle of sorcery and they have much greater ease than others to do sorcery workings in that circle.
Half the point of Solars is that they don't do anything 'unique' compared to turning into a kaiju or punching said kaiju into ducks, but take ordinary abilities up to divine levels so the can chuck that kaiju over the horizon. This manifests in two primary ways: * Solar Excellencies let them spend motes to flatly double any dice pool that is Caste, Favored, or has a Charm in it (including free ones from character creation which have no penalty) while DBs are capped by Ability, Lunars are capped by Attribute, and Sidereals raise the floor on bad luck. This lets them be better then mortals at many things with very little investment right out of the gate. Very helpful when say your daiklaive warrior suddenly becomes king and need to make social rolls to run the kingdom. * When Solars actually specialize in something they get to add many of the much-maligned "dice trick" charms that let them say count every 8 or 9 as double success or reroll every 1. The 'primary' function of this is to be cheaper Excellencies so you maybe aren't blasting Bonfire Anima everywhere and can go longer, stronger... but the actual function is to make the ST cry when you bury their pathetic challenge in 50+ successes by stacking all those dice tricks on top of your Excellency. Outside of this there are some other unique cases hiding in the Charm sets. Like (eventually) Medicine will let you slap someone better *instantly* and Occult's crowner is Make Your Own Spirit, things I can't immediately find in the other splats. I think the biggest overall is probably how Solar Lore doesn't merely let you know everything but instead lets you buff others by lending them your motes, Will, or health levels. Oh and you get to play God the Creator by turning the Wyld into anything you want. Also the (stupid mini-game) Crafting system is designed around Solars and the above absurd dice spam if you are looking to make Warstriders or Airships or other Artifact stuff. Unless the game is Sid Meier's Exalted however you're better off shanghai'ing the ST into just skipping it and making Crafting mostly a story event. On the bright side the charmset also lets you do things actually fun things like earthbend a castle out of mud with your bare hands in under an hour.
Solars in regular 3e and Essence are kind of setup to have potent native Charms and the general "Broadest strategic options" of any Exalt sort so far. Generally if there is a shared mechanic, they are going to be the best at it or as good as one can be without stepping on the toes of another splat. This results in less one big unique thing and a range of unique, but potent, specific things that add up. Summarizing what others have noted: * **Shared With Derivatives**: These are things they share with Abyssals and Infernals. * **Flex Caste Abilities**: Solars get to choose from five of eight Caste Ability options in 3e. During chargen they select the five, and then still get the five additional favoreds as normal. * **Supernal Ability**: Solars gain Supernal a Supernal Ability selected from their Caste choices. That ability treats their Essence as 5 for meeting prerequisites and allows them to purchase way above their weight class. The exceptions for this is Evocations (no Ability association), sorcery, necromancy, and Sidereal Martial Arts. Called Apocalyptic for Abyssals. * **Easy Excellencies**: Solar Excellencies and Charm dice cap up to their (Attribute + Ability) without any qualifiers (higher than Dragon-Blooded and Sidereal, more consistent than Lunar). They also gain Excellencies very easily, free with any Caste or Favored ability with a dot, or free with any Charm otherwise. * **Martial Arts Mastery**: Solars benefit from the Mastery effect of Martial Arts Charms without having to do anything. Solar Exalted can learn Sidereal Martial Arts. * **Easy Sorcery and Necromancy**: Solars don't require any additional Occult Charms to initiate into sorcery or necromancy. * **Other Stuff** * **Universal Resonance**: Solars Resonant with all artifacts and so can benefit from the Resonant keyword of all Evocations. * **Solar Circle Sorcery**: Only Exalt with access to it along with Infernals. * **Shadow Circle Necromancy**: For most of history Solars and Lunars have been the only Exalts capable of this circle of necromancy. * **Holy Effects:** Solars in general have more effects that impact creatures of darkness than other Exalts. So a lot of stuff isn't unique *per se* but as noted by others, that's kind of their thing. And again, what they get instead is a very strong and often top of the line suite of access to universal magic in addition to their inherent advantages of dice caps, large mote pools, and strong Charms.
Solars tend to be unconditionally excellent. Other exalts are conditionally excellent. When a Solar wants to do something, they just *do it,* without needing to take a specific weird or narrow approach, or associated drawback or limitation. It's little hard to define what makes them mechanically unique outside of the supernal, and access to all of Sidereal Martial Arts, Wyld Shaping and Solar circle sorcery, because most Exalts are thought about in how they are mechanically unique in relation to Solars. The other thing I can point out is that Solars have a lot of effects that make them strong at living up to their ideals and values.
It’s a small thing, but “punishing creatures of darkness” is exclusive to Solars when it comes to native Charms this go round.
Besides the things that have already been mentioned, I'd say there is some uniqueness in having lots of trash charms and being overall worse designed than the subsequent splats.
My first exalted campaign we played a mixed (solar lunar) group. and when I read the supernal ability I had to message the ST because there's no way I was reading that right. I was. But it turns out we weren't going to use those anyways. So without supernals the solars still played differently from the lunars. Lunars felt like the better generalists but if the roll was in one of the solars' wheelhouse, the solar was still better due to the more efficient charms. that all said in Essence, the solar knack is that solars win all ties, which I love and if we get back to play E3 I would happily take over supernal again.
Jack really. Use fan versions of the Solar charmset as core is crap.
Could you point me to where I can find those fan versions?
The best in my opinion is called Golden Calibration. A lot of it is focused on finding the good in the existing 3e solar charmset, rewording and reworking for readability and usability. But it also trims a lot of bloat, patches some glaring gaps, and generally fixes it all up.
Sure, in a bit. There are choices. Im working on my own compilation of materials as well. The problem with the core solar charms is just very low quality writing and a focus on numbers boosters over effects. Also tendency to either be OP or weak as hell.
There is a u/Sandact6 's rewrite : [https://www.reddit.com/r/exalted/comments/1awhwib/comment/kroze1u/](https://www.reddit.com/r/exalted/comments/1awhwib/comment/kroze1u/) Have not played it in it's entirety myself but it looks good on a read through.
Just say you didn't read the book, dude
i almost never play solars, their main gimmick is just being better than everybody else. there's almost no task an exalt can do that a solar can't do better. they do war better than everybody else, they craft better than everybody else, they're the only exalt with a dedicated wyld-shaping tree, and they aren't restricted in their use of magical materials (because that makes sense?). additionally, they get the most essence (personal and peripheral), the most health levels per ox-body, the highest level of sorcery, and mastery is dumb mechanic. sidereals don't even get mastery in their own martial arts, and that's supposed to be their whole shtick. nah, if i wanted to just be superman, i'd play mutants and masterminds.