High essence PCs? How high and what was it like?

I am curious as to how high, in actual play, PCs took their essence. Were or are there any Essence 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 player characters? If so, what is play like at that, ahem, exalted level?

It gets a little crazy actually, but not really that much different from having a group of Essence 3-5 Exalts. Just bigger explosions, more rubble, that kind of stuff. Bigger bad guys are essential of course. Normal role-playing problems, investigations, social combat, etc. are a lot harder to use to stump the PCs as Charms at this level basically say "I win". So it really is just everything else turned up to 11.

The diificult thing to balance is that if you pit your players against a single, powerful enemy in combat, said enemy will never get to use any Charms beyond his defense ones. If you pit the players against several powerful enemies in combat, combat tends to slow down quite a bit.

My only High Essence Game was about three Powerful Lunars that caused (and lately tried to contain and stop) a multiple invasion by ALL of the Eight Nations Of Autochtonia, after improperly opening a Network of Teleport Gates corrupted by the Wyld.
When they understood that the malfunctioning gates would weaken Creation's Time-Space Fabric and allow Invaders from Elsewhere it was too late and even if they were only Essence 5 they powered up by taking many Combat and Combat Support Charms. When they were in the Middle of the Invasion they had all enough Xp to get Essence 6 and since they were of more than 100 years old I permitted that.
One was a Full Moon Lion-Totemed Master of Tiger Style Martial Art, who had not only Moonsilver Tattoo Armour but also (Houseruled by me) Reinforcements of the Magical Material into his Muscles and Bones, as he was developed by the Elders of the Silver Pact as the Ultimate Anti-Wyld Weapon; when he was one-on-one Versus even powerful warriors he would shred to pieces even experienced Exalted warriors and was able to engage many hordes of mooks with Combos of his Lion Roar Method (adapted for 2edition) powered up into Concussive Shock Soundwaves by Silver Voiced Nightingale Charms.
Another was a Panther Totem Changing Moon Assassin, quite powerful with Mantis Style and Unseen Energy Katars and able to kill mid level enemies (especially Dragonblooded Dynasts) after dazzling them with his Appearance Charms; he started also lately to use Necromancy for Nefarious Purposes (in particular Powered-Up Zombie Bodyguards made with the rest of his enemies) alongside with many Terrestrial Sorceries of Assassination.
The last was designed by the player to cover any lacks of the two before, and was a sort of Tiger Totem No Moon Samurai-Sorcerer who not only was capable of Summoning fearsome Demons and Elementals, but also was quite lethal both with Artifact Powerbows (with Elemental Empowered Arrows) and Katana-like Reaver Daiklaive.
After saving the Dragonblooded Resolute Brigada they became friends and he selected many useful Charms of Even Blade Style, comboing them with Lunar Combat Charms to became a fearsome dueling swordman.
They were wise players who stock up not only on offensive Charms but also Defensive and Support Ones (also for Social Combat) and were able to defeat the Campaign main enemies, an Unholy Alliance of a powerful Fair Folk Noble, an Abyssal Necromancer and a Second Circle Demon possessing an Artifact Armour.
After the main battle as I saw what were their Combat Tactics versus few powerful enemies surrounded by hordes of lowly minions I designed against them Customized Mid-Essence Alchemical Exalted Battlegroups, able to Combine into Gigantic Warstriders or separate in Little Transformers-Style Automaton Flyers, able to engage the Players'
"Trio Of Doom" from many angles.
Sadly the Campaign is frozen now so I had not the possibility to Playtest much my Houseruled Alchemical Invaders (but I plan to resurrect the Idea as soon as the new Manual goes out)....

Two at Essence 6, one at Essence 7. Balanced challenges became a bit harder but far from impossible.

particle_man:

I am curious as to how high, in actual play, PCs took their essence. Were or are there any Essence 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 player characters? If so, what is play like at that, ahem, exalted level?

I have one twilight solar with Essence 6 in my game (Lytek's Endowment..long story) with 2.000 XP (and a little more too).
She also has Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Style and is goint to learn Charcoal March of Spiders next session.

The problem is that there are not high Essence Charms for Solars (DreamBox Solars Charms are forbiden in my games), so you end having an Essence 6 Solar with no Charm of Essence 6.
That's in par why i give her SMA (that and because is all part of a great plot my players know nothing about... ^_^ ).

So is very difficult to tell you how is a high Essence campeign when you dont have high essence charms to use. Al least for solars. I have not storytell any other kind of exalt.

Maese Mateo:

The problem is that there are not high Essence Charms for Solars (DreamBox Solars Charms are forbiden in my games), so you end having an Essence 6 Solar with no Charm of Essence 6.

Hopefully the Glories pdf will fix that problem.

EzekielReigns:

Maese Mateo:

The problem is that there are not high Essence Charms for Solars (DreamBox Solars Charms are forbiden in my games), so you end having an Essence 6 Solar with no Charm of Essence 6.

Hopefully the Glories pdf will fix that problem.

Yes, i have a lot of hope into that book. In fact, i will only buy it if it really has new Charms.

For now you might have to live with custom charms.

We're all essence 4 aiming for 5 very soon in our games. Essence increase is almost a big thing in our games...

We tend to play loose with the Essence limitations that Core Exalted places on your characters. It seems almost mocking (to me) for charms to be released with Essence 6, 7, etc prerequisites (how good they are is not the issue) and you not be able to obtain them with your character that is only 20 years old. Even though you might have the EXP totals to obtain such powers if not for the damn essence cap. Typically in our games if your circle completes a truly epic task, such as unifying a direction under your rule, defeating a Deathlord, or something of that nature, our ST allows us to raise our essence by one past the 5 dot cap. I personally find that rushing to the max essence cap is a waste of EXP when one could be fleshing out their character with a larger charm base and more skills, but that's just my humble little opinion.

As for high essence games, we've played elder Sidereals that started with Essence 8 and found it to be quite fun. One of my favorite characters was from this game, a Chosen of Serenity who cultivated a lazy exterior, but who's motivation was to master every form of Sidereal Martial Arts.

The same is for me, as my High Essence Lunars Players wisely aimed for a solid base of Offensive-Defensive-Support Charms before even thinking of going towards Essence 5 and after that 6.
They always asked me what kind of prerequistite Charms were linkable in Combos for obtaining the desired effect, so they never wasted Xp for inutile things.
Even if they took something only for Flavour / Background Value I rewarded them with Bonus on Social Rolls (even the Full-Moon was heavy on Intimidating Social Attacks, while the Samurai No-Moon even if a silent, brooding type, has many knowledge of "Spirit Chiminage" to successfully coax into collaboration Elemental and even Demons).
They aimed for High Essence especially for obtaining Large Mote Pools and for many Charm Effects that functioned on "X Essence Damage Effect" and so on as high prerequisite Charms were not on their top list of priorities.

Tango:

For now you might have to live with custom charms.

The King of Swords:

Tango:

For now you might have to live with custom charms.

Or, alternatively, take a peek at Plague of Hats Hundredfold Facets of Enlightenment supplement. It contains loads of great charms.

Yes, i'm doing this for now.

Is a great option until we have something canon.