Alternate Paragon: Mary Sue, the impractically Perfect

[username]

Apocryphal Alternate Paragon: Mary Sue

If a Paragon is supremely talented, and a Fool is impossibly lucky, then a Mary Sue is someone who simply has a knack for getting (and being) exactly what they want. Through some twist of fate, their lives are a perfect storm of tragedy and opportunity. Mary Sues tend to have billionaire parents (who die horribly), be forced into brutal servitude (in a top-secret elite unit) and harbor unspeakable secrets (that only make them even cooler).


Power Stat: Excellence
As a Mary Sue's Excellence grows, so does her (and others') perception of it. Mary Sues always have at least as many names as they have Excellence. (In other words, if Ebony raises her Excellence from 1 to 5 she must now be known as Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way.)

Resource Stat: Action Points (and Pressure Points)

Destiny
Statuesque
Special Snowflake: You gain two additional Assets. However, you may not take any Hindrances.
Omnipotent: All skills are treated as Basic for you, and you take no penalty for attempting skills you have zero dots in.

** Swift as the Coursing River
*** Irresistible: Anyone who enters into combat or social combat with you must spend Resolve and/or Resource points equal to your Excellence.
**** One-Up: When attempting any Test, you receive a number of raises equal to the number of checks your allies have received on the same Test in this scene.
***** Flawlessly Logical: Once per scene, you may use Charm Person on everyone who can see you, using Excellence + Level instead of the normal Magic Test.



MARY SUE DEVELOPMENT ASSETS

Like Paragons, Mary Sues can take as many Exalted Assets as they wish.

Bad Religion: All religion is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry. Whenever you perform a Stunt that would earn a point of Resolve according to the Alignment of someone else in a scene, that Stunt cannot trigger an Alignment check.

My Chemical Romance: Love is blind, and lovers cannot see. Gain the Human racial feat Mixed Heritage. You may take this Asset any number of times.

Forever Changed: Be the change that you wish to see in the world. Select an Exalted other than Mary Sue. You gain a free Asset from this Exalted Asset list. You use Excellence and Action Points in the place of other stats, and ignore all references to unique mechanics you do not have.

30 Seconds to Mars: One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. You may act in an additional number of simultaneous Bridge Officer positions as you have Excellence.

Panic! at the Disco: It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both. You may spend an Action Point to gain a Fear Rating equal your Excellence.

Porting over this Exalt with all respect and appreciation to Kwak, the previous creator.

[username]

Fixed the broken 1st image. Again. Sorry for the delay on that.

Now the real question is if Flawlessly Logical should get replaced with something less... not so good. Charm Person is pretty underrated since it makes people friendly to you in addition to the bonus on social rolls but it is still pretty lackluster for a 5th power stat ability. I think Kwak had been talking about changing it as well but I'm not certain anything was actually decided beyond that.

[GuardianTempest]

Revised Paragon when?

Is One-Up cumulative? And you could save that as the Excellence 5 ability, as a foil to the Paragon's ability that boosts the dice rolls of others.

Here's an overpowered idea: You may spend 5 Action Points in lieu of a Hero Point. This was meant to be for a future Exaltation that only has resource points equal to power stat. It would've been the 5-dot power but maybe it could be appropriate for the Mary Sue, whose heroics defy stories themselves.

[Lestat]

I feel like Mary Sue is a really good normal-social exalt, but I think some parts of it need review.

SPOILER: Click to show

So, I think One-Up should become the Power Stat 5 ability given how it partially mirrors Paragon's PS5. Actually, the wording probably needs to be tightened up: everyone's checks apply, and they apply every time they keep failing - even if its just one guy spamming fails. Then it doesn't say it goes away.

When attempting any test you receive a number of raises equal to the highest number of checks each ally has received on the same test. Once you succeed the checks are reset.

But counting every check across the whole scene can be a lot of bookwork. It could also be per round.

When attempting any test you receive a number of raises equal to the number of checks your allies have received on the same test this round.

That still allows someone to roll dual wield double tap spam against a dodge master and add 20 checks to your roll, but its more manageable and doesn't compound over the scene. There are other ways to phrase it/change it past these.

However, I think the Assets are of greater importance: they are close to impenetrable to a new player, and even bog down an old player. You have 5 assets, one can be taken multiple times. None can be taken post-character creation. I think Mary Sue used to be able to take them later, but it was changed because it was all built on a misreading of Paragon's asset rules.
So you have 600 starting XP, no hinderances, and 500/600 of your XP are basically spoken for, and if you want the special benefit of My Chemical Romance then you must dedicate all your XP on your assets. That means no Artifact 5, Holdings 5, Followers 5, Fame 5, Backing 5, Wealth 5 - very Mary Sue like stuff. But it isn't just a balance or theme issue, its actually character building issue: imaging needing to read every Exaltation asset, and every Racial feat in the game to start your character. You could at least have the option to decide later.
As a small side note: My Chemical Romance uses Mixed Heritage wording "You CANNOT take feats that reference a power you lack", Forever Changed is "You CAN take assets that reference a power you lack, just ignore it". Sure, substitute Excellence and Action Points, but use the same logic as Mixed Heritage.

Also, once again, consider a new player: having blank abilities leads to more back-and-forth checking multiple pages and compiling them manually instead of it being in one spot.

As for Flawlessly Logical replacement ideas: I considered "Flawless: Once per scene, you may reroll any set of dice on a roll - either yours or other's.". But it might be too close to Fool.
Perfectly Elegant from Maid is a cornerstone concept of a Mary Sue - you don't really fail even when you fail, but it might not live up to the Power Stat level.

Perfectly Elegant
You have achieved perfect grace, where you can avoid the pitfalls that many others fall into. You never suffer more than the basic effect of a failed test, no matter how many checks on the roll.