Curious about Exalted

[Aquillion]

That wasn't official statistics. These were words of a devolper who doesn't work on the gameline anymore in an Internet conversation. And see, I want to play in the setting where a circle of five essence 5 solars can indeed kill UCS. Or a circle of essence 6-7 other Exalted, for that matter. I don't want to play on the setting where numerous NPCs are given "You Lose" abilities. No matter whether they are gods, Sidereals or Deathlords. This is not WoD.According to the principals on which Creation itself is based, the Unconquered Sun must defeat every enemy.

However, defeating every enemy isn't the same as winning (or surviving) every fight. Additionally, this would almost certainly not apply to creatures that are not part of Creation at all (if it did, the Neverborn, Fair Folk, and Yozi would have despaired long ago.) If you could lure him outside of Creation, his defenses probably wouldn't apply, either (sure, that's impossible, given how hard it is just to lure him outside his pleasure-dome right now, but you are plotting to kill the embodiment of victory itself, so if you aren't interested in figuring out ways to accomplish the impossible then you might as well stop now.) And there are exceptions to everything in the Exalted universe -- there is at least one published five-dot artifact I can think of whose description strongly implies that it would specifically be applicable in helping to kill the Unconquered Sun (that ring that would make it impossible for him -- or anything from outside creation -- to attack the wearer by any means beyond normal physical attacks, although it still specifically advises that you not wrestle with the Unconquered Sun.)

Killing the Unconquered Sun is not supposed to be easy (Short of releasing the Yozi just so you can kick their asses again, where do you go for an encore?) It would likely be the capstone of an entire campaign, and naturally it's not going to be written down exactly how it will go (that would make it dull.) Killing a god who had stats written down like he was some kind of giant glowing goblinoid in the sky wouldn't be so epic. Killing the god who is fated to defeat every enemy, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of thing Exalted is about.

No, you can't beat the Unconquered Sun just by charging into his pleasure-dome and rolling dice at him (although its outer defenses are statted out if you want to try). You would have to be clever or resourceful, and use tricks that exploit the exact wording of his invulnerability, or strange artifacts from before the first Age made to kill the Yozi themselves, or powerful allies or strange techniques and charms that can reduce or negate some of his power.

Part of the reason why he isn't statted out, I think, is so you and your group can determine for themselves exactly how tough he's going to be and whether a circle of 5-essence Solars can really beat him.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Maybe...if you lured him into a battle that he would win, but at great cost? A phyrric victory is still a victory.

[Innis Cabal]

But it would still mean that you lose. Even if you gain something by it, it probably won't be his death. And your forgetting, if he loses there are things that will take the chance to do...nasty things. Not to mention angry gods who want revenge, or won't jump into the battle.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Why would anyone want to fight the Unconquered Sun anyway?

[Innis Cabal]

Well. The Yozi and the Malfeans for imprisoning them and killing them respectivly.

The Abyssals under the Deathlords because the Deathlords are told to by the Malfeans

The Akuma because the Yozi tell them they want to.

The Fair Folk because...thats just what they do.

[Jerthanis]

Why would anyone want to fight the Unconquered Sun anyway?

Well... he basically turned his back on his Chosen, and when their enemies rose up around them to wipe them out, he did nothing to stop it. This pretty much directly contributed, from a certain point of view, to the widespread suffering you find in the setting. Instead of bringing his power to bare on the problems of creation, he basically sits in the Jade Pleasure Dome playing the Games of Divinity, which are like Monopoly if simply looking at the pieces were like snorting cocaine while experiencing the love of a thousand mortal lifetimes.

So basically, good people might fight him simply to take him to task for things they think he did wrong, or to spur him to action.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Don't all deities play the Games of Divinity? And what's so special about them that the gods would overthrow their creators to play them? It seems rather petty to me.

[Innis Cabal]

It is petty. Your exactly right about that. They wre jealous and envied their creators for their lavish lifestyle while they had to work.

The game is....well its better then anything you've ever done, will do, ever and end of story. Yep, its better then that to. Its like sex for your mind, body and soul, and even that pales to what it -really- is. One instant of the game for a mortal is Soul Burning.

As for all dieties....no, there are some that don't, the biggun's all do. Though the Maidens take turns. Only one or at most two play at a time

[MeklorIlavator]

That wasn't the only reason. The primordials also treated all the gods ( and another primordial) as slaves, and mortals were worse than slaves. Or at least, that's what some people down in the keychain of creation thread said.

[Innis Cabal]

Its both true and false. Not all of them were jerks. Gaia was pretty nice for one. There were some others that treated both the gods and humans as contributing members of society, albiet just a little under them. Heck Luna and Gaia were lovers. Gaia only sided with the gods for that very fact.

[Aquillion]

Don't all deities play the Games of Divinity? And what's so special about them that the gods would overthrow their creators to play them? It seems rather petty to me.
Only the Celestial Incarnae -- the top deities, representing the Sun, the Moon, and the five stars that oversee destiny -- are the 'official' players of the games, plus the Primordial Gaia as an honorary member, though occasionally they will let an extremely favored lesser deity play a single turn as a reward for some incredible task.

The Games of Divinity are so addicting that recordings made by the gods taking these turns are sold in Heaven as a sort of magical supercrack (only more addicting, and they're not actually sold for money because they're priceless.) The Games are central to the story of Creation, so I should give you a brief overview of that part of Exalted history...

The Primordials, ancient inhuman entities greater than the gods themselves, originally shaped Creation from the chaos of the Wyld (which still surrounds it, and which is where the Fair Folk come from -- the Fair Folk predate creation, and hate it because it is unchanging and stable. But that's another story.) Once they had shaped Creation and the various creatures that lived on it, they retreated to the first land they'd created -- the heavenly isle of Yu-Shan, which is sort of separate from the rest of Creation, though accessible through 61 gates scattered around -- and created the Gods to take up the day-to-day task of running Creation for them, with the greatest gods -- the Celestial Incarnae -- in charge of the five chief stars, the sun, and the moon. Having done this, the Incarnae retired to play the Games of Creation, which were wonderful beyond imaginging (but which are specifically not games played with the fates of mortals or anything like that -- the games are a distraction and nothing more, albeit the most addicting distraction ever made.)

The Incarnae themselves became so desperate to play these games that they decided to murder their creators to get the chance. The Primordials had bound all of Creation to never rise up against them, but since humans were so weak and pathetic, they never bothered to bind us; so, with the aid of two rogue Primordials (Autochthon, the mechanical-oriented great maker, who loved humans and was despised by the other Primordials for his twisted form) and Gaia (who fell in love with Luna, the Incarnae of the moon), they created the Solars and the other Exalted to use as their weapons. This is why the Exalted have absolute free will, incidentally -- if the Gods had been able to control them, they wouldn't have been able to use them as a weapon against the Primordials because of their ancient oaths. But they could give mortals the power to fight the Primordials and let it play out.

The gods and the Exalted won, of course, though the dying Primordials placed a curse on the Exalted (which almost nobody knows about) that would eventually twist their virtues into excess and tyranny. The Primordials who died in the war became the Neverborn, ghosts of unimaginable power, and created the Underworld and the Shadowlands that link it to creation as they fell. The Primordials who surrendered were twisted and turned into horrible creatures bound by oaths on their own names inside the body of the greatest Primordial in what is now called Malfeas; they are known as Yozi, though the lesser parts of their soul which can slip out of Malfeas (generally when summoned by Exalted or the Gods, who also put loopholes in those oaths that let the subsidiary souls of the Yozi be controlled) are more commonly known as demons, ranging from the weak and common demons of the First Circle up to the awe-inspiring demons of the Third Circle, who are each essentially a substantial portion of one of the Yozi's souls, and have (in theory) the power that shaped Creation within them. Needless to say, the Yozi are very, very angry, although there's not much they can do about this situation.

Anyway, the gods then in turn retired to play the Games of Divinity, and became so addicted to it that they now completely neglect creation in favor of their addiction. Autochthon eventually decided that he wasn't welcome in Creation, and left to hibernate Elsewhere (although is so large he has an entire civilization living inside him, including his own late-created Exalted, the Alchemicals.) Technically, the Exalted Sun didn't turn his back on the Solars until they completely disguised him with their excesses at the end of the first age... That was quickly followed by the Usurpation. Later the Great Contagation and the Fair Folk invasion would threaten Creation itself, and in all those cases the Incarnae did nothing -- some don't even think they were aware of it, since they were so engrossed in the game. This caused most of the lesser gods to grow corrupt and decadent in turn, believing (correctly) that there was no longer any oversight with the Incarnae addicted and the Solars gone. Nobody even knows for sure if the Incarnae know that the Solars are back -- although in theory the Exalted Sun has to rubberstamp the form for every Exaltation, he has given no other indication that he knows or cares.

So the Games of Divinity are sort of like World of Warcraft, basically. :smalltongue:

A Solar might want to kill the Incarnae out of passionate revenge for abandoning creation. They might also want to kill the Incarnae and / or destroy the games of creation for logical reasons, believing that as long as the ultimate leadership of creation is so corrupted by it, Creation is going to be doomed to corruption and disaster again and again. There is a faction in heaven (a super-secret faction, obviously, given how insanely treasonous it is) who seeks to destroy the Games, but they're not likely to get very far on their own.

The games have never been described or detailed in any way (and the Exalted, for obvious reasons, are forbidden from ever even entering the dome where they are played), but it's been implied that they're some sort of artifact of the Primordials. The only substantial effect that they have on reality (aside from, you know, keeping the Incarnae addicted and useless) is that whoever is ahead in the game sets the sky in the Heavenly City of Yu-Shan -- if the Unconquered Sun is ahead, it's day; if Luna is ahead, it's a moonlit night; and if one of the Five Maidens is ahead (which is more rare), it's very dark, lit only by the stars, with that maidens' star in ascendancy.

Regarding Gaia, she didn't so much side with humanity and the gods as she did decline to help the other Primordials. Autochthon directly sided with the gods, though, and he certainly wasn't evil (although he's very, very strange). As I noted, he's been described as having affection for normal, unenhanced humans -- actually, the humans were the creations of all the other Primordials, not him (they were trying to ape his original creations), but as the Great Maker he loved the possibilities for growth and creation inherent in sentient life, and devoted himself to teaching them even once the other Primordials had lost interest. He was the one who fashioned the Exaltations (although using the essences of the gods), and without him it's probably impossible to fashion more. He also made weapons and armor for the Exalted, and taught them to craft and maintain things themselves. Eventually, the Gods and the Solars managed to offend him when they demanded that he bind his own original creations to live beneath the earth forever (they're sort of like Exalted's dwarves, although they don't show up much and few people know the exist), but even then he just quietly left instead of making a fuss. Currently he exists as a giant floating machine-god the size of a planet, in hibernation and possibly dying, with the descendants people he took with him living inside him, and his own created Alchemical Exalted watching over them (Alchemicals are not exalted from mortals, but created whole-cloth, though using human souls). He's also in another dimension, sort of; nobody in Creation knows what happened to him.

[BobVosh]

Well... he basically turned his back on his Chosen, and when their enemies rose up around them to wipe them out, he did nothing to stop it. This pretty much directly contributed, from a certain point of view, to the widespread suffering you find in the setting. Instead of bringing his power to bare on the problems of creation, he basically sits in the Jade Pleasure Dome playing the Games of Divinity, which are like Monopoly if simply looking at the pieces were like snorting cocainehitting ecstasy while experiencing the love of a thousand mortal lifetimes.

So basically, good people might fight him simply to take him to task for things they think he did wrong, or to spur him to action.

Also most exalted boards same the GoD are more like Parcheesi than anything else. Terribly addicting Parcheesi.

Since someone beat me to the history lesson, I think I will provide a bit more detail on Autochthon. He is the strongest of the Primoridals, mechanical in nature, but somehow has some sort of sickness. Like a major whooping cough or similiar. As the strongest of the primoridals he did lots of cool things, like create the loom of fate, pattern spiders that someone mention, and the mountain men (think dwarves). Other primoridals thought this was neat, and made the fodder mortals. Consider this a major failure, they went back to the games of divinity.
See previous Usurption.

Really long version of all history, as found here (http://forums.white-wolf.com/viewtopic.php?t=88426&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=)

First, there was Chaos. Literally, the everything-and-nothing kind of chaos.

Then some titans showed up. They were made out of people and places, and the Chaos was pretty annoying. So they created the World, better known as Creation.

Creation is at the top of an infinitely tall mountain, and the Poles of Air, Fire, Water and Wood mark its outer boundaries. The Pole of Earth is the mountain it's on top of. Each of the cardinal directions are more strongly associated with the nearby element: North is Air, South is Fire, West is Water, East is Wood.

Creation was cool and all, but the Primordials—as these world-building titans were known—decided Heaven would be cooler, so they built that. Then, they built the Games of Divinity, which is so cool it will kill you. Not because it's dangerous, but because it's so awesome you just die from it.

The Primordials also created the gods, because Creation can't manage itself. The gods of Creation are bureaucrats and overseers. They monitor goings-on and make sure the Chaos doesn't mess things up. They enforce Fate, which is what Destiny says is supposed to happen. If something Outside Fate has too much influence, Destiny's predictions get messed up and things get all tangled and disorganized and eventually everything would theoretically snowball into complete causal meltdown.

At the head of the divine bureaucracy they placed the Unconquered Sun. When asked to build a theme deck for a Magic tournament, he put together a bunch of cards that had nothing to do with each other story- or color-wise. It stomped every other deck's ass, and when asked why he didn't make a theme deck he responded: "Winning is a theme."

It was the Unconquered Sun's job to make sure the Chaos didn't encroach on Creation. At the edges, where Chaos and Creation mingled, there was a sort of causality bog known as the Wyld, a place of Chaotic Shape. It was small back then. Fair Folk, evil, beautiful, soul-eating LARPers from beyond time and space, came out of the Chaos and took Shape to play in the Wyld and try to invade Creation. The Unconquered Sun stopped them, because he's better than that.

The Unconquered Sun was helped by Luna, who is sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, and sometimes a man and a woman. Or sometimes animals. Or whatever. He's a shapeshifter. When the Sun takes a rest, Luna is there to pick up the slack, getting more powerful as the Wyld gets more powerful, thus associating the tides of the Wyld with the waxing and waning of the Moon.

Luna and the Sun are what are known as Incarnae. An Incarna is a special kind of god that is better than other gods for some indefinable reason. Apart from the Sun and Luna, there are the five Maidens: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, the Maidens of Journeys, Serenity, Battles, Secrets and Endings respectively. They oversee Fate and know things and see things differently.

The gods saw that the Games of Divinity looked quite awesome, and decided they wanted some. This, of course, is where the Primordial's design flaws really begin to show. They had given the gods free will and passion, the better to carry out their drudgery, which is never a good idea. But they had forced the gods to swear an oath not to harm the Primordials. The gods got around this by creating powerful companions to battle the Primordials for them.

Autochthon was a Primordial rather different from the others. He was the usual, stunted Hephaestus-type craft-genius. He was willing to betray the other Primordials because they picked on him and broke the awesome **** he built. He showed the Incarnae how to Exalt human beings. Humans were one of the weakest, most uninteresting and unenviable races yet devised by the Primordials, which made them very afraid and prone to prayer. Prayer is money in Heaven, so humans were a pretty good deal for the Primordials, until the whole rebellion thing.

The Sun created 300 Solar Exalted, who are each "Winning is a theme" god-kings. The Moon created 300 Lunar Exalted to match, who are "Surviving and adapting is a theme" god-kings. Each of the Five Maidens created 20 Sidereal Exalted, who have themes based on the Maiden who made them. Some might say that for Sidereals, "Cheating is a theme." These are the Celestial Exalted. They can live thousands of years, but once they die that power passes on to an essentially random but worthy host. These Celestial Exaltations are impervious to real harm and ever-lasting and powered by free will; the Incarnae or Primordials couldn't stop them once they were sent out. Since the Incarnae gave up control of them, the Primordials couldn't order them to bring them back or disempower them. Smooth.

Another Primordial willing to betray her fellows was Gaia, one of the original authors of Creation. She wasn't going to do any fighting, or really anything herself, but she loved Luna so there you go. She did have her sub-souls, the Five Elemental Dragons, create the weakest but most numerous type of Exalted: Dragon-Blooded. These Terrestrial Exalted are more mundane heroes of elemental aspect, and unlike the Celestial Exalted their children become Dragon-Blooded too. At first there were only 10,000 of them, but they solved that problem very quickly. They were the soldiers for the Celestial leaders.

The Exalted rose up and made war on the Primordial slave-masters, and they won. They might've killed all of the titans, but Gaia made them be nicer: They mutilated their souls, turned their greatest leader inside out and imprisoned them all inside him. They are now the Yozis, the demons of Hell. The Yozis swore oaths and are destined to always want to escape and never be able to. Their oaths also bind them into service to the Exalted and gods, so that their lesser souls, your relatively common demon, can be summoned back to Creation for service. Sometimes their lesser souls can also slip through the cracks in the prison, which is generally considered bad. One of the Yozis, She Who Lives In Her Name, cracked open a part of herself before being imprisoned and burned away nine-tenths of the world in retribution; no one knows quite what was lost because it ceased to exist so entirely.

Some of the Primordials were killed in the war. Because reality wasn't built for that kind of thing, they couldn't actually die, so instead they became the Neverborn. Their bodies painful tombs filled with crypts for their souls and the whispering dreams of hate they have for the living. They fell towards Oblivion, which is literally what it sounds like, but they got stuck on the way because the universe was broken. The Labyrinth and the Underworld sprung up around them, either from their dreams or as a buffer against Oblivion for the rest of the universe. The Labyrinth is a wormy, endless series of caverns filled with the horrors of fitful dead gods and their dreams; the Underworld that sits atop it is a dark mirror of Creation. Where the Elemental Pole of Earth is a six hundred mile tall mountain in the center of the world, in the Underworld is an enormous pit that leads to Oblivion and the Tombs of the Neverborn. Without the Underworld, ghosts didn't exist, because souls just reincarnated. Now, the world is broken.

With their dying breaths, the Neverborn (or the Neverborn and Yozis...Second Edition has been inconsistent about this part) laid the Great Curse on the Exalted. This Curse doomed them to doom themselves, indulging their character flaws to the point of madness. The Solars got it worst, then the Lunars and Sidereals, and least of all the Dragon-Bloods. No one knew this happened though, except maybe the Maiden of Secrets, but she can't tell anyone because then it wouldn't be a secret.

Before the war, the gods had created the Five Elementals to better regulate Creation. At the beginning of the war, the paranoid Primordials shattered these great beings because they were not bound by the gods' oaths. This only scattered their elemental power, though, and now little elementals pop up all over Creation.

The Unconquered Sun and the other gods whooped it up and took over Heaven and the Games of Divinity. In return, they "gifted" the Exalted with broke-ass Creation. They handed the Solars the Mandate of Heaven, the Creation-Ruling Mandate, and told them to get to work. The Solars did, and over the course of three and a half millennia built a society of idyllic comforts and terrible Solar whimsy. As the Great Curse encouraged worse and worse behavior, the Solars became a more destructive influence. Eventually, their highest priest blasphemed and the Sun turned his face from them. They didn't really care.

The Sidereals were very concerned about this, and cast prophecies. They saw three potentials: 1) try to save the Solars from their madness, succeed, and Win It All; 2) try to save the Solars or do nothing, watching Creation slide into golden, terrible madness; or 3) try to kill the Solars, lessening Creation but keeping it safe in perpetuity. It should be mentioned, at this point, that the Curse of the Sidereal Exalted is one of hubris and poor planning, which is pretty harsh when your job is to be a planner and adviser. They chose option 3, which didn't account for things Outside Fate that could muck up prophecies. Go heroes!

Because it had been 3,000 years, all the Exalted had been fairly steadily growing in power. Of course, they live pretty exciting lives, so few of them actually lived that whole time. In any case, it was quite a job killing 300 of the most powerful beings in existence. To do so, the Sidereals teamed up with the Dragon-Blooded. In a daring move at a yearly banquet, many of the Solars were killed and their Exaltations trapped in the Jade Prison so that they could not reincarnate. The surviving Solars caused much havoc, the capital city of Creation was decimated, and lots of things blew up or were killed or both. The Lunar Exalted were generally loyal to the Solars, or at least viewed as not too trustworthy by the Sidereals, so the Lunars were driven out into the Wyld.

This was all extremely illegal, and Heaven would've pressed charges and fixed things if not for what the Sidereals did to cover up their actions. They occluded their criminal acts by casting Destinies for them with the Constellation of the Mask. They did so with such vigor and so heavily, that the Mask strained under the pressure and broke. They broke part of Fate and Creation and the world to cover up their crime. Now, no one in Creation can remember them properly, they can never form lasting relationships and a lot of gods are kind of miffed at them.

For a few hundred years the Dragon-Blooded bickered amongst themselves, ruling Creation and fighting over it. The gods were kind of uncooperative, because the Terrestrials didn't have the Mandate that the Solars had. Things were still okay, though. The Sidereals went back to doing their job in Heaven, but were even more underappreciated. The Lunars, trapped in the Wyld, were infected by Chaos and had to go through a whole "thing" to try and get that under control. Now Lunars can become chimera, which are insane, ever-mutating beasts. Fun.

Then the Contagion came, a disease that wiped out 90% of all living things in the entire world, and could even make Sidereals sick when they read the Fate of the diseased. This disease came from outside of Fate, and it really would've helped it the Solars had been around. Then, another threat outside Fate came along: Fair Folk. Without the Solars, the Fair Folk stood a chance of destroying Creation and returning everything back to Chaos. They invaded in numberless hordes, and Creation's borders shrank; there were no living things to keep reality whole, dead as they were from disease or war.

Then a heroic young Dragon-Blooded officer and some of her friends broke into the Shrine of the Anathema (which is what the non-Terrestrial Exalted were called to make everyone feel better about themselves). There, this young officer sacrificed her friends or they sacrificed themselves to activate the Sword of Creation. Giant elemental warriors materialized, cold iron needles flew thousands of miles through the sky and decimated the Fair Folk, driving them back and saving Creation. This young officer emerged and named herself the Scarlet Empress, rightful ruler of the world. Some people disagreed, so now there's the Scarlet Empire (better known as the Realm) in the center of the world, it's outlying tributary-states, and a bunch of independent states scattered across the outskirts of Creation.

Just a few years before "present" in the game line, the Scarlet Empress disappeared. No one knows where, and now the Empire she created that relied entirely on her is collapsing. Worse/better, the Jade Prison was found and broken, and the Solars have returned. Definitely worse (or better if you're the Neverborn), the Solars are lesser in number and instead some new Exalted are showing up, calling themselves "Abyssals." There are also rumblings of some wicked new Exalted coming from Hell, as well.

By default, with just the corebook, your players will be making Solar Exalted, come back to save or damn the world with laser kung-fu. You can buy other books to play all the other Exalted, or even gods, demons, ghosts, elementals and more. Primarily, once you get your hands on Creation, your mandate is to go forth and do awesome.

Some important pacts: Eclipse have a pact with the Fair Folk (coolest elves + fairies ever, amirite?) that so long as they don't attack first the FF won't attack them.
They also have a pact with Heaven that they can get in anytime they want.
I'm not positive if they effects their Abyssal counterparts or not.

For fighting the war on Primoridials all exalts have a pact with the Gods that the mortal world is the exalts turf. Limited interference.

Also pattern spiders biting the Gods threads would be humorous. The only effect that would really bother them is that a loved one dies. (which is my favorite effect, mainly because it says: This is the only bite that your character can become immune to through repetition. Although note that the poison will wait until you love someone to kill them should it happen.)

[Kyeudo]

Don't all deities play the Games of Divinity? And what's so special about them that the gods would overthrow their creators to play them? It seems rather petty to me.

Well, the Games, as explained by others, are super-addicting for everything, but the Incarnae are technically strong enough that if they wanted to break free they could. So why don't they? The game leaves it up to you.

I personally believe that the Unconquered Sun is trapped by his own boredom. It takes something of Incarnae level power to defy his divine nature to triumph over any challenge. That divine nature also comes with a need to rise to the challenge, and Sol Invictus just can't find one anywhere else. He offed the Primordials because it was the greatest challenge (and the Primordials as a whole were horrible bosses). Now? The only ones who can beat the UCS is the other Incarnae. Therefore, the only challenge he has is the Games.

Even then, you have to give him credit. He still manages to sign all the paperwork needed to keep Heaven running while playing the most challenging game in Creation against the incarnations of Change, Journeys, Conflict, Pleasure, Secrets, and Endings. Heck, I think Heaven has day and night cycles just because the UCS's winning streaks last about half of every day.

[Aquillion]

I'm not positive if they effects their Abyssal counterparts or not.It probably does. The new Fair Folk-oriented book apparently says, basically, that the only reason the Fair Folk were able to invade after the Great Contagation was because someone invited them, which was required under ancient oaths; this confused them because, of course, the only people who could who could make that invitation were the ancient Solars with whom they had the pact never to invade, and none were alive.

The implication, of course, is that the First and Forsaken Lion was the one who let them in*. It's not quite the same (he's the evil ghost of an ancient Exalted rather than holding their corrupted Exaltation), but it implies that pacts with the Fair Folk remain valid even after death or once you've passed into the Underworld, which would probably cover Abyssals, too.

* I suppose Eye and Seven Despairs might have had something to do with letting them in, too, but come on, he's Eye and Seven Despairs. Princess Magnificent is a disgraced and humiliated slave who was defeated by trio of minor river gods, and she is only considered the second most pathetic Deathlord thanks to him. I refuse to believe that even that poorly-thought-out-plan could have gotten that much from a Deathlord whose primary defining characteristics are obsessive petty vengeance and crossdressing to the point where it makes other Deathlords uncomfortable.


Well, the Games, as explained by others, are super-addicting for everything, but the Incarnae are technically strong enough that if they wanted to break free they could. So why don't they? The game leaves it up to you.As I recall, it says that Venus was the Maiden who most resisted the idea of allowing the Usurpation to happen, and she gave in to despair shortly after that, vanishing into a drug-fueled orgy of gaming. (In general, the Maidens are a bit less addicted to the games than the Unconquered Sun and Luna -- they'll at least meet with their underlings in the antechamber of the games.)

And the Unconquered Sun, as noted, turned his back on his Chosen after they offended him in some unspecified event relating to their hubris near the end of the First Age. Before then he would at least respond to their prayers and watch over them, even if he was addicted to gaming.

The others, though, I don't think any more information is given. (Although there's a Lunar myth that Luna gave up on them after they started fixing their Castes, this seems unlikely, since that didn't happen until after the Usurpation. Then again, maybe that explains why the Lunars survived.)

[BobVosh]

I think its actually closer to 2/3 of the time. And if wanted a real fight he would go to a Faerie Court and say bring it on. No pansy always wins cheats there.

[Kyeudo]

The Abyssals do not get the "Legitimate Buisiness" clause in their Exaltation for the Fair Folk, Demons, or Spirits. They do, however, get it with any of the Dead.

As for the Fair Folk being able to get around the UCS's "auto win" clause, it doesn't work that way. The UCS was made the incarnation of Triumph to guard Creation from the Fae. MAYBE if the UCS was beyond the Deep Wyld AND was going up against one of the uber-nevershaped Fae he MIGHT lose, but only because the concept of triumph lacks any definition out there.

I think Ligier might be able to take down the UCS, but only if he was freed from the ancient strictures. As it stands, the UCS calls and Ligier comes with his tail between his legs.

[Jerthanis]

* I suppose Eye and Seven Despairs might have had something to do with letting them in, too, but come on, he's Eye and Seven Despairs. Princess Magnificent is a disgraced and humiliated slave who was defeated by trio of minor river gods, and she is only considered the second most pathetic Deathlord thanks to him. I refuse to believe that even that poorly-thought-out-plan could have gotten that much from a Deathlord whose primary defining characteristics are obsessive petty vengeance and crossdressing to the point where it makes other Deathlords uncomfortable.

Considering what a colossal screwup inviting the Fair Folk in ended up being in the end (Dowager insists that's the only reason the Contagion didn't work eventually), I'd almost suggest Eye and Seven would be the MOST logical co-conspirator.

Man, it's amazing how awesome Eye and Seven Dispairs makes it seem to screw up almost continuously. It's like he wins every battle and loses every war.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Wow, ask a simple question and get both a simple answer and several really, really complicated ones! Thanks!:smallsmile:

[Learnedguy]

Actually, the game is rather interesting. I said that to beat the UCS you have to lock him in a battle he can't win (and never lose either for that moment). And the game really is just that, isn't it? It got no end, and it eats up all his attention, making him apathetic towards creation.

Anyway, have you guys ever thought about using the Exalted ruleset to something else but Exalted. The Exalted ruleset is considered pretty fluff-defendant, and rightfully so, but I think for a few changes, it should be possible to import to some specific "anime" settings (perhaps Diebuster?)

[Kyeudo]

Anyway, have you guys ever thought about using the Exalted ruleset to something else but Exalted. The Exalted ruleset is considered pretty fluff-defendant, and rightfully so, but I think for a few changes, it should be possible to import to some specific "anime" settings (perhaps Diebuster?)

I've been working on and off on a conversion to the Matrix. Yank out the excessive "Neo is Jesus" symbolism and you've got over the top action that would fit well with the Exalted system.

[Kantolin]

Anyway, have you guys ever thought about using the Exalted ruleset to something else but Exalted.

I've actually never done that in particular, but I've done it the other way around - used D&D rules or just freeform with Exalted flavor.

Both were really fun, the D&D set over the freeform.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, the Games, as explained by others, are super-addicting for everything, but the Incarnae are technically strong enough that if they wanted to break free they could. So why don't they? The game leaves it up to you.

I personally believe that the Unconquered Sun is trapped by his own boredom. It takes something of Incarnae level power to defy his divine nature to triumph over any challenge. That divine nature also comes with a need to rise to the challenge, and Sol Invictus just can't find one anywhere else. He offed the Primordials because it was the greatest challenge (and the Primordials as a whole were horrible bosses). Now? The only ones who can beat the UCS is the other Incarnae. Therefore, the only challenge he has is the Games.

Even then, you have to give him credit. He still manages to sign all the paperwork needed to keep Heaven running while playing the most challenging game in Creation against the incarnations of Change, Journeys, Conflict, Pleasure, Secrets, and Endings. Heck, I think Heaven has day and night cycles just because the UCS's winning streaks last about half of every day.

That's almost pitiable. So, can Exalted characters actually MEET their gods? Or is Yu-Shan (I believe that's what they call Heaven) barred from everyone except the gods? Is divine ascension possible?

[FatR]

My mistake, it was related to me as if it were official. One question though: what means do you use to play D&D in the way you describe above? Because D&D seems to be a lot about the Strong being Unstoppable by the Weak.
Advising players about character optimization :smallsmile:. Also, levels really skyrocket in DnD, if XP isn't sparcer than recommended - I didn't keep precise count, but on average the party gets levelups every second-third session, even though they spend considerable amount of time roleplaying. Basically all you need to do is keep this progression of XP the domain of player characters, and set the acceptable level of optimization for the campaign high enough, while keeping the official NPCs (I use stuff from published adventures) the same. Oh, and highlight how badass and important characters of level 5+ are in your descriptions.

[Artanis]

That's almost pitiable. So, can Exalted characters actually MEET their gods? Or is Yu-Shan (I believe that's what they call Heaven) barred from everyone except the gods? Is divine ascension possible?
Exalted characters can do anything they set their minds to. The only question is a matter of difficulty :smallwink:


Regarding entry to Yu-Shan

Any Celestial (or higher) Exalt can get into Yu-Shan if they can find it, assuming they haven't done something to piss off the guys in charge of security. Trying to force their way in is liable to - you guessed it - piss off the security (the "bouncers" are giant golden lion gods, btw), and having too many enemies is liable to get them ganked in some alley somewhere if they aren't careful (yes, there are "bad neighborhoods" in Heaven).

At the moment, many Solars don't even know about Yu-Shan, much less have a method of getting there. And if they did, they'd have the Sidereals trying to keep them from doing so via behind-the-scenes manipulation, which is the Sidereals' "thing". However, Solars do have the "we rule creation" rule going for them, so the Celestial Lions won't give them any unwarranted trouble. And if anybody can convince the greatest deities in Creation to come chat, it's the Solars.

Lunars are more likely to know about Yu-Shan, but probably the least likely to try and go there if they do. The "standard" Lunar is a full-blown barbarian with an animal...uh..."thing". But it's possible, especially if they can find some helpful elder Lunar who knows how to get there.

Sidereals live in Yu-Shan, and their deities are the Incarnae most likely to actually take a break from the Games of Divinity in order to do their jobs. 'nuff said.

Dragonbloods' knowledge of Yu-Shan consists of what the Sidereals want them to know, which isn't much, if any at all. Even if they found a way there, they aren't allowed in the gates unless they're officially guests of and accompanied by somebody who has legitimate business there. They're kinda like little kids taken to a formal gathering: sit down, shut up, don't touch anything, and we might not beat you when we get home.

Alchemicals...I have no idea. I don't think Yu-Shan even has rules regarding them, since they came about after Autochton left Creation.

Abyssals are Kill On Sight. Anybody who tries to bring an Abyssal becomes Kill On Sight as well. And that goes for any undead and/or Fair Folk in addition to Abyssals. Abyssals, however, don't have too terribly much trouble meeting with their gods, and actually tend to get dragged off and punished by them if they aren't emo enough.



"Divine Ascension" is...uh...complex. Everything that needs a deity has a deity already. If the system needs a new deity (e.g. the patron god of a new town), one pops into existence. IF a deity is killed, that may leave an open slot, and somebody would have to fill that slot. In theory, that could be a mortal appointed and empowered to do that job.

For Exalted, they don't become gods, because they already are gods, more or less. A god's power is whatever is appropriate to what it's the god of, no more, and no less. Exalted, on the other hand, get stronger than a LOT of gods. Even Dragonbloods can get pretty damned powerful, and an ancient Solar...well, let's just say that during the First Age, some Twilights thought it would be fun to try to break fate itself, just to see if they could.

[Aquillion]

Anyway, have you guys ever thought about using the Exalted ruleset to something else but Exalted. The Exalted ruleset is considered pretty fluff-defendant, and rightfully so, but I think for a few changes, it should be possible to import to some specific "anime" settings (perhaps Diebuster?)I think it would be a very good system to represent Twelve Kingdoms at the very least (if you've never seen it, it has a Celestial Bureaucracy, immortal god-king rulers appointed by the gods themselves who can make anyone else they want immortal too, and creatures that are very much like the lesser gods of Exalted. And it's also based on Chinese folklore, so the overall look-and-feel is quite similar. Also, in it, people grow on trees.)

Also, I've always thought that Eberron bears a curious similarity to Exalted in some ways. You have the same complicated morality for many of the setting's established characters (while there are still some downright evil people if you look), you have heroes who are supposed to be superhuman and stand above the common folk, you have the old dragon-houses who rule the world using their inherited powers, you have the cursed land scarred by the huge numbers of deaths on it, you've got the sorrowful disaster in the past that means that many of the strange magitech wonders of the previous age are lost... oh, and both settings use magitech, of course.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Exalted characters can do anything they set their minds to. The only question is a matter of difficulty :smallwink:


Regarding entry to Yu-Shan

Any Celestial (or higher) Exalt can get into Yu-Shan if they can find it, assuming they haven't done something to piss off the guys in charge of security. Trying to force their way in is liable to - you guessed it - piss off the security (the "bouncers" are giant golden lion gods, btw), and having too many enemies is liable to get them ganked in some alley somewhere if they aren't careful (yes, there are "bad neighborhoods" in Heaven).

At the moment, many Solars don't even know about Yu-Shan, much less have a method of getting there. And if they did, they'd have the Sidereals trying to keep them from doing so via behind-the-scenes manipulation, which is the Sidereals' "thing". However, Solars do have the "we rule creation" rule going for them, so the Celestial Lions won't give them any unwarranted trouble. And if anybody can convince the greatest deities in Creation to come chat, it's the Solars.

Lunars are more likely to know about Yu-Shan, but probably the least likely to try and go there if they do. The "standard" Lunar is a full-blown barbarian with an animal...uh..."thing". But it's possible, especially if they can find some helpful elder Lunar who knows how to get there.

Sidereals live in Yu-Shan, and their deities are the Incarnae most likely to actually take a break from the Games of Divinity in order to do their jobs. 'nuff said.

Dragonbloods' knowledge of Yu-Shan consists of what the Sidereals want them to know, which isn't much, if any at all. Even if they found a way there, they aren't allowed in the gates unless they're officially guests of and accompanied by somebody who has legitimate business there. They're kinda like little kids taken to a formal gathering: sit down, shut up, don't touch anything, and we might not beat you when we get home.

Alchemicals...I have no idea. I don't think Yu-Shan even has rules regarding them, since they came about after Autochton left Creation.

Abyssals are Kill On Sight. Anybody who tries to bring an Abyssal becomes Kill On Sight as well. And that goes for any undead and/or Fair Folk in addition to Abyssals. Abyssals, however, don't have too terribly much trouble meeting with their gods, and actually tend to get dragged off and punished by them if they aren't emo enough.



"Divine Ascension" is...uh...complex. Everything that needs a deity has a deity already. If the system needs a new deity (e.g. the patron god of a new town), one pops into existence. IF a deity is killed, that may leave an open slot, and somebody would have to fill that slot. In theory, that could be a mortal appointed and empowered to do that job.

For Exalted, they don't become gods, because they already are gods, more or less. A god's power is whatever is appropriate to what it's the god of, no more, and no less. Exalted, on the other hand, get stronger than a LOT of gods. Even Dragonbloods can get pretty damned powerful, and an ancient Solar...well, let's just say that during the First Age, some Twilights thought it would be fun to try to break fate itself, just to see if they could.

So the Gods don't have anything against the Solars? I thought the entire universe hated the Solars.

[Lochar]

The gods have less against the Solars than most do. The Solar madness never really effected the Gods that much, because 99% of the madness was directed towards 'lesser' being, such as the mortal humans.

As their madness grew and grew, that's when the Sidereals did their prophecy thing.

I think that was the bad side of the second prophecy, where the madness of the Solars grew to such proportions that they basically did to the gods, what the gods did to the Primordials. Except, the Exalted wouldn't have empowered anyone to do it to re-create the loop. They would have done it themselves.

And while the UCS might not have been defeatable (let's not get into that), he could have been rendered more or less impotent if he was the only God left, and the Solars were running everything else. You can't destroy the caretakers, if you have no one to replace them with.

[tyckspoon]

So the Gods don't have anything against the Solars? I thought the entire universe hated the Solars.

These particular gods made the Solars (and the Lunars and Sidereals.) specifically to be Awesome sort-of-mortal avatars of the concepts the gods themselves represent. They are, you would say, a little bit biased. There are other gods in Exalted who are both more active (because they are not permitted access to the Games) and who would have more reason to want to oppose the Solars. And then there's the negative varieties of Exalted, and the Fey, and all the other things that want to destroy the world, and the biggest civilization in Creation says Solars Are Evil as a matter of religious dogma- it's pretty fair to say that the default state of the world is between neutral and antagonistic to Exalts. 'course, part of the point of being an Exalt is that you can change all that if it's what you want to do.

[Oslecamo]

Also, I've always thought that Eberron bears a curious similarity to Exalted in some ways. You have the same complicated morality for many of the setting's established characters (while there are still some downright evil people if you look), you have heroes who are supposed to be superhuman and stand above the common folk, you have the old dragon-houses who rule the world using their inherited powers, you have the cursed land scarred by the huge numbers of deaths on it, you've got the sorrowful disaster in the past that means that many of the strange magitech wonders of the previous age are lost... oh, and both settings use magitech, of course.

You seem to be forgeting that in Eberron:
0-Heros don't stand up so much. The "common folk" are fleshraker riding halflings, orc druids who fight aberrations in a daily basis, 8 year old kids who get their own iniquisition force, cyborgs, necromancers, airship pilots, pirates, you name it. If you find a person who isn't made of cool then you're in the wrong seting.

1-There's really no complicated morality, there's just a massive capitalism going on. If it's profitable then it's ok to go. Wanna be an adventurer? Well, then fill the formularies, pay the fee, and you're good to go. People retrieve gems from hell itself and they're sold in the open market.

2-Old dragon houses? Most of them are pretty recent! And they don't rule the world, heck, most of Eberron is on the hands of beings who don't even have dragonmarks at all.

3-Altough somethings have been lost, for all that matters the current Eberron age is the one with the most advanced magitech right now, whereas in Exalted the world itself is growing smaller by the moment. Airships, lighting rail, warforgeds, you name it. Despite the disasters, Eberron always kept going forward. One could actually call those disasters as a little help to that evolution, to stop things from geting stagnant.

[Aquillion]

These particular gods made the Solars (and the Lunars and Sidereals.) specifically to be Awesome sort-of-mortal avatars of the concepts the gods themselves represent. They are, you would say, a little bit biased. There are other gods in Exalted who are both more active (because they are not permitted access to the Games) and who would have more reason to want to oppose the Solars. And then there's the negative varieties of Exalted, and the Fey, and all the other things that want to destroy the world, and the biggest civilization in Creation says Solars Are Evil as a matter of religious dogma- it's pretty fair to say that the default state of the world is between neutral and antagonistic to Exalts. 'course, part of the point of being an Exalt is that you can change all that if it's what you want to do.Actually, it's more than just the Incarnae who admire the Solars. The majority of the Celestial gods in Yu-Shan do, and most wouldn't object if they came back. Some are actively trying to help the Solars come back.

First, for people who don't know Exalted so well: Gods in Exalted are divided between Celestial gods, who live in Yu-Shan, and Terrestrial Gods, who live on earth. Celestial gods represent abstract or universal concepts, from the Incarnae down to the gods of things like gravity, peace, decay, bankruptcy and so on. Terrestrial gods represent something local -- the god of a specific river, forest, mountain, etc. The really minor Terrestrial gods are just called 'spirits' by most people, though they might take offense at this. In general, there's considerable bad blood between the two, because the Celestial gods sort of left the Terrestrial ones to rot during the Great Contagion and the Fair Folk invasion. And in general, of course, Celestial Gods outrank Terrestrial ones, though there are naturally exceptions (the gods of major rivers and mountains are pretty important, after all.)

With the heavens currently so involved in bitter infighting, the Terrestrial gods have become increasingly corrupt, and set up things to their own benefit. There are a few honest and honorable ones, but they tend to get trampled by the ones who don't play by the rules. These terrestrials (as well as many corrupt Celestial gods) do not want the Solars back, for reasons that have nothing to do with personal feelings about the Solars themselves -- if the Solars manage to fix things, they'll lose their corrupt perks at best, and might even get brought to justice. The Gods who have the most power, after all, are generally the ones with the most invested in the current system.

However, there are two other factors working in the Solar's favor. First, the Solars are meant to keep the gods in line. The lesser gods are literally shaped with deference to the Solars built into them, and even the greater ones have a respect for the Solars that they will never have for the Sidereals, who they view as uppity backstabbing pencil-pushers (and certainly not for the Dragon-Blooded who supposedly rule creation now -- even the gods who are for one reason or another on the Dragon-Blooded's side view the concept of overblown pikemen ruling Creation as comical.) The older gods remember how much better things were during the Solar Deliberative, despite the corruption. Many of the more conservative gods simply believe that it's "right" for the Solars to rule -- the god in charge of the Ariel Legion of heaven, say, will turn his post over it to any Solar who he thinks is capable of managing it, since that's just the way he feels that Heaven should be.

The other major factor is that gods have their own interests. They want to get more prayer. They want the things that they represent to grow and spread and become more important; when the things that a god represents become more important or widespread on earth, that god becomes more powerful. (For example, Vermilion Ink Silencer, the god of bankruptcy I mentioned before, is a hugely important god at the moment because of all the foreclosures following the Scarlet Empress' disappearance. It won't last.)

Lytek, the God of Exaltation, views them almost as his children, and without them he's out of a big part of his job (in fact, his status and power directly diminished when the Solars were overthrown.) Of course, in his case he has an added reason to want the Solars back and to hate the people who got rid of them -- he was physically manhandled when the Sidereals captured the Solar Essences inside the Jade Prison to prevent their rebirth, something that many deities consider a bigger crime than the actual slaughter itself. (This is also why most gods don't trust the Sidereals. Oh, also, the fact that they use weapons made out of Starmetal -- which is the corpse of dead gods -- has a bit to do with it, too. Some gods suspect that the Sidereals arrange the execution of minor gods on trumped-up charges whenever the need more Starmetal. These suspicions are correct.)

The god of Health wants the Solars back because (despite the small percentage of people they tortured to death or whatever) universal health was far better during the Solar's reign than it has been afterwords. The God of Invention supported the Solars so openly that he ended up getting arrested on trumped-up charges and locked in a cage. The Goddess of Literacy favors the Solars because they tend to spread education. The God of Artificial Flight lost most of his power when the Solars left. There are lots of other gods who feel the same way -- of course, there are gods whose domains put them opposed to the return of the Solars, too (the goddess of Prostitution feels they'd ban her domain, the god of ruined cities just wants to see everything get overrun, and so on.)

But in general, most gods lean somewhat towards the Solars, viewing the Dragon-Blooded as upstarts and the Sidereals as untrustworthy. The Sidereals have their own division, between the larger and more powerful Bronze Faction that supported the genocide of the Solars, and the smaller but insurgent Gold Faction that supports propping up the Solars in place of the Dragon-Blooded. They don't want the Solars to actually rule -- they want to turn the Solars into their puppets, and have this horrid little cult that uses drugs and brainwashing and so on to this end.

Also, many gods (and others) support the Solars because they simply believe the Solars are going to win and want to be on the winning side... and many of the people who oppose them are the same way, and would quickly switch sides if they thought the wind was changing direction.

One major exception to all this is the goddess who is currently in charge of the Bureau of Heaven, which is probably the most powerful administrative position below the Incarnae. She openly sides with the Bronze Faction Sidereals and is likely to be a major obstacle to any Solars who want to reclaim Heaven through diplomacy or bureaucratic fiat. But below her, a significant portion of the Celestial gods tend to look back on the Solars' rule as a golden age.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

What makes the Sidereals think they know better than the gods themselves? Exalted are, by default, servants of the gods, right? The Sidereals seem like real arrogant jerks from where I'm sitting.

[JerryMcJerrison]

What makes the Sidereals think they know better than the gods themselves? Exalted are, by default, servants of the gods, right? The Sidereals seem like real arrogant jerks from where I'm sitting.

I think the Exalts were basically supposed to be second only to the Incarnae, so yeah, I'd imagine they would think that. As for mucking everything up, most of the blame falls on the Great Curse. Without that, a) The Solars would have been good people, so the siddies wouldn't have needed to intervene much more than usual, and b) the siddies would likely have chosen to help the Solars, not kill them.

Someone cooler than myself summarized the Great Curse perfectly: It makes the Solars horrible people, makes the Lunars horrible things, makes the Sidereals make horrible descisions, and makes the Terrestrials horrible allies.

Also, personal favorite part of Exalted is that EVERYTHING follows the Inverse Ninja Theory.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

And the Alchemicals, Abyssals and Infernals?

[Lochar]

The Alchemicals were created later, and were not involved in the death of the Primordials. Ergo, no Great Curse.

The Abyssals and Infernals are minions of what is left of the Primordials (The Neverborn and the demons). They do not have the curse, but instead have different flaws.

[Aquillion]

What makes the Sidereals think they know better than the gods themselves? Exalted are, by default, servants of the gods, right? The Sidereals seem like real arrogant jerks from where I'm sitting.Yeah, the Great Curse makes the Sidereals prone to pride. "Knowing what they think is best for everyone" pretty much describes the Sidereals in a nutshell (and given that their job involves overseeing Fate itself, this is perhaps understandable.)

Also, the Gold Faction wouldn't put it so bluntly. They'd say they want the Solars to rule with their guidance, etc, etc. But what it would amount to (in their favored world) would be a world where they're the ones pulling the strings from behind the scenes, with the Solars kept mostly ignorant about many key things (the Sidereals' role in the Ursurpation being a major one, obviously.) And the cult they set up to recruit, rescue, and guide Solars does save them from the Wyld Hunt, train them, and so on... but it also uses drugs and starvation to break people's will, and demands absolute obedience to its Gold Faction Sidereal leaders as the representatives of heaven.

Considering that even the wise and powerful Chejop Kejak failed to keep full control of the lowly Dragon-Blooded after the rise of the Scarlet Empress, this might seem like a pretty bad plan, but the Sidereals have been the secret masters of creation for over a thousand years, so it's easy for them to make misjudgments like that.


And the Alchemicals, Abyssals and Infernals?
They don't suffer from the Great Curse (well, I'm not sure about Infernals.) Alchemicals were never affected by it -- they were created by Autochthon after he left creation (and therefore after the Primordial war), so they didn't participate in killing the Primordials and never got cursed. Instead they are under the effect of something called "Clarity", which amounts to thinking more and more like Autochthon himself -- that is, more and more like an inhuman machine. It doesn't make them evil (they wouldn't destroy things without a good reason, say, because it would be wasting resources), but it makes them coldly logical -- sort of like Spock Syndrome or something.

The Abyssals suffer from something rather nastier. Basically, whenever they defend or create life, and whenever they act like the living (by answering to their old names, for instance) they accumulate Resonance, which represents their Neverborn masters getting angry at them. When it builds up too high, it vents in the form of things around them suddenly dying, people they love or like dying without warning, strange bleeding from their body, and so on. Since Abyssals have the corrupted Exaltations of Solars inside them, they were once subject to the Great Curse, but the Neverborn revoked it (on them only) when they were corrupted -- this is important, and the book specifically notes that even if an Abyssal manages to become redeemed and return to being a Solar, the Neverborn cannot re-instate their curse (they're dead now, which sort of limits them.)

The infernals... very little is actually written about them (I don't think they've ever gotten a splatbook?) But the Neverborn only revoked the curse on the Exaltations they didn't turn over to the Yozi, I think, and it's the Neverborn's curse, so the Yozi can't technically revoke it... also, any Akuma (living Solars who willingly get corrupted into Infernals) would probably still be cursed unless they also managed to convince the Neverborn to uncurse them (good luck with that.) Someone who knows more about Infernals might correct me on this, though.

[JerryMcJerrison]

Pretty much all I remember about infernals is that you need a book (probably the Broken Winged Crane), then to make a really difficult Lore roll to find out that the Yozis can grant you a heaping helping of power, and one twice as hard to find out that doing so binds you completely into their service. Then, if you do it, the Yozi's twist you around like silly putty into whatever they think would suit them best, and send you on your merry way.

[Innis Cabal]

Ya its the Broken Winged Crane, reading it opens a portal to Malfea and you can go in. They still suffer from the Great Curse, and also fall under the awful curse of -having- to do what the Yozi say. Kill yourself? Yep gotta do it. Lick the grease pit of a resutant and enjoy it? Yep, that to.

Its not a pleasent or wonderful existance, even if they get what ever they want

[Archpaladin Zousha]

It seems like in Creation everything goes from bad to worse.

[Aquillion]

It seems like in Creation everything goes from bad to worse.More or less. When the Bronze Faction Sidereals chose to overthrow the Solars, they knew that they were permanently reducing the glory of creation in order to (in their eyes) ensure its survival. Everything since has been part of the cost of that decision.

The Solars, though, do have the power to recover much of the glory of the First Age, if they reclaim their old positions.

[Innis Cabal]

Which is no small task really. They are up against more foes and more powerful foes now then they were when they first were -given- their position of power.

Its going to be a long, hard, bitter and destructive fight for the top made worse by the meddling dead and imprisoned high teir non-god powers.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

More or less. When the Bronze Faction Sidereals chose to overthrow the Solars, they knew that they were permanently reducing the glory of creation in order to (in their eyes) ensure its survival. Everything since has been part of the cost of that decision.

The Solars, though, do have the power to recover much of the glory of the First Age, if they reclaim their old positions.

And if the Solars return to power, is Creaton doomed to destruction once again?

What would need to be done in order to undo all the damage that Creation has suffered since the dawn of time?

[Innis Cabal]

I don't think the damage can be undone.

And, there is an end result to the Exalted World, its the World of Darkness. We at least know the Dragon Kings live on to the present day. Does that answer if Creation is doomed if the get in power again? No, but its not really known if the world was doomed in the first place. The Sidereal just said it was.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Wait a minute, the world of Exalted is the World of Darkness in the past? That's all kinds of screwy! How does that work out? The Abyssals become vampires? The Lunars become werewolves? What happens to the Sidereals or the Solars? And what of the gods? I can't exactly imagine a mythic level high fantasy world like Exalted decaying into a low-magic gothic horror world.

[Innis Cabal]

Sidereal become mages, they even have Paradox.

And yes, according to White Wold, Exalted is the past of the Old World of Darkness. What you've said is my guess as well, its the only thing that makes sense. The Solar's probably became the Mummies. Wraith and the Underworld is vastly unchanged from its current state in Exalted, sharing several similar characters. The Fair Folk became the Changlings. The Dragon King's do in fact remain various states.

They don't go into detail how the world shifted. But it is canon last I knew. I don't altogather care for it, but its better then the Judgement.

So the world gets better, if you consider oWoD better then the world of Exalted.

[Aquillion]

Sidereal become mages, they even have Paradox.

And yes, according to White Wold, Exalted is the past of the Old World of Darkness. What you've said is my guess as well, its the only thing that makes sense. The Solar's probably became the Mummies. Wraith and the Underworld is vastly unchanged from its current state in Exalted, sharing several similar characters. The Fair Folk became the Changlings. The Dragon King's do in fact remain various states.

They don't go into detail how the world shifted. But it is canon last I knew. I don't altogather care for it, but its better then the Judgement.

So the world gets better, if you consider oWoD better then the world of Exalted.No, that isn't certain anymore. They focused a lot on it in 1e, but they moved away from it in 2e, and it's not longer obvious -- it's very much an optional thing based on the kind of game you're running. In general 2e is less dark than 1e (though it can still be very dark in places depending on how it's played); Creation is certainly not doomed, though it is facing a lot of threats.

The Exalted are not certain to destroy things again. Just before the Sidereals overthrew them, the Sidereals (concerned about Solar excesses and rapidly-increasing madness) had a big astrological gathering that basically broke down into three prophecies of the possible future:

In the Bronze prophecy, the Sidereals overthrew the Solars, and creation lived on (though diminished.)

In the Dark prophecy (or whatever it's called -- it didn't start a faction for obvious reasons, so its name isn't so widely-used), the Sidereals did nothing and Creation was doomed.

In the Gold prophecy, the Sidereals went to the Solars with their concerns, and told them everything. In this case there were many, many possible futures -- ranging from destruction to the Solars overcoming their problems, leading to a glorious future without end.

Obviously, while there was some debate (and some dissenting Sidereals had to be killed to avoid alerting the Solars), they went with the Bronze prophecy. (Actually, shouldn't Lytek have learned of their plans when the Exaltations of several murdered Sidereals came to his office at once? You'd think he'd have gotten suspicious and examined their memories to see why the died... that'd have given the game away right then and there.)

(Also, the connection to WoD always required treating certain parts of the WoD that became canon as non-canon -- especially anything that touches on the Antediluvians or anything earlier. If you use that connection, the Antediluvians simply can't exist.)

[Innis Cabal]

No, that isn't certain anymore. They focused a lot on it in 1e, but they moved away from it in 2e, and it's not longer obvious -- it's very much an optional thing based on the kind of game you're running. In general 2e is less dark than 1e (though it can still be very dark in places depending on how it's played); Creation is certainly not doomed, though it is facing a lot of threats.

The Exalted are not certain to destroy things again. Just before the Sidereals overthrew them, the Sidereals (concerned about Solar excesses and rapidly-increasing madness) had a big astrological gathering that basically broke down into three prophecies of the possible future:

In the Bronze prophecy, the Sidereals overthrew the Solars, and creation lived on (though diminished.)

In the Dark prophecy (or whatever it's called -- it didn't start a faction for obvious reasons, so its name isn't so widely-used), the Sidereals did nothing and Creation was doomed.

In the Gold prophecy, the Sidereals went to the Solars with their concerns, and told them everything. In this case there were many, many possible futures -- ranging from destruction to the Solars overcoming their problems, leading to a glorious future without end.

Obviously, while there was some debate (and some dissenting Sidereals had to be killed to avoid alerting the Solars), they went with the Bronze prophecy. (Actually, shouldn't Lytek have learned of their plans when the Exaltations of several murdered Sidereals came to his office at once? You'd think he'd have gotten suspicious and examined their memories to see why the died... that'd have given the game away right then and there.)

The Sidereael confrence happened in 1st ed as well. Its just that there were other answers, some pointing to the Lunars, but they were all thrown out. There is a minor Silver Faction that exists, but they are even more widely discredited and mostly made up of Ronin.

Though I wasn't aware they broke the story connect from 1st and oWoD. Thats one thing can agree with 2nd ed. Though I find the lightneing of the mood takes away a part of what made Exalted so wonderful.


Edit: And it can, as the flood isn't what breaks Exalted and WoD apart. As there is no "God" or even a round world, there has to be a section of history before WoD right after Exalted, and then the history of WoD can go forward. There is no break in canon what so ever

[Cubey]

And yes, according to White Wold, Exalted is the past of the Old World of Darkness.

No.

That was the original idea when they were creating the world, but it was ditched as early as 1st Edition, and 2nd doesn't even mention it.

It's not unlike Earthdawn being Shadowrun's past - it seemed cool at first so the creators were going with it at the start, but then it turned out to be not such a good idea so it was abandoned.

[BobVosh]

Let me make sure this is clear, as it seems to be a bit of confusion. The gods aren't like D&D gods where a super strong dude, or stealthy, etc, decided they wanted to be god of toasters, beards, and ear rings. The mere fact that there are ear rings means there is a god of them.

The loom of fate was created in order to make sure things didn't go into chaos. The easiest way to make sure everything has its place and running smoothly is to have a single creature watch it. Now this causes problems with numbers. The solution? A spirit exists that is a representation of the object. This spirit has a job, making it a "god" dispite the fact that even a mortal 2 year old has more power to effect things that this god. Exalts CAN become gods, but mostly they don't want to. Unlike the spirits made for the object they aren't affected by how well known, worship, etc the object is. All it is a title to them.

The really funny side effect to this is that when objects are destroyed the gods aren't. There are literal god slums in Yu-Shan. Anyway, everything has a god. There is a god of the small beaten path between your backdoor and outhouse. A god of all small beaten paths. A god of Roads (biggy in the gods world) All of these gods fall under the Maiden of Journeys, Mecrury. One of the Incarnae, and one of the 5 maidens of the Sidereals. Most of the really big gods have portfolio sense as per D&D. Most of the lower ones just know whats going on with the path or whatever.

Also the amount of prayer a god gets is directly influential to how much money/power they have. Yu-shan has fountains of some substance I can't remember the name of that can be crafted into any mundane object, and is pretty neat. Pretty much just grab what ya want, makes god munchies go down. The good stuff is called ambrosia and is formed in bricks when mortals pray. (A lot of them, takes a pretty good size group prayer to make a brick of it) This can be crafted into anything below artifact level 5 (I'm not positive on this, I'm sure someone will correct me on it. Not many players should have much of this stuff). It also works as currency. This is what you get paid in when your Sidereal has a salary.

Prayers stick around until you got enough to get a brick. Some gods have to wait forever for one brick to form, some get it quickly. The UCS is lucky in that he gets a percentage of all prayers. (want to say 10%)

All this rant on the "money" of heaven is saying that Exalts don't get Ambrosia from being a god, don't get additional powers, don't get portfolio sense, but get paper work by becoming a god. So...do you really want to do this?

Also you can get people to worship you without becoming a god. This pisses gods off as they lose some ambrosia, but its pretty damn good for you. Afterall it recovers motes (mana) and willpower.

Bah, customers. In my work?

BBL

[Aquillion]

Let me make sure this is clear, as it seems to be a bit of confusion. The gods aren't like D&D gods where a super strong dude, or stealthy, etc, decided they wanted to be god of toasters, beards, and ear rings. The mere fact that there are ear rings means there is a god of them.However, it is possible for a mortal to be uplifted into 'proper' divinity, albeit extremely rare (the head of the Bureau of Serenity -- who was a favored lover of Venus -- is the only canonical example I can think of. It's probably impossible now, since it seems as though only the Incarnae can do it and there's no real way for a mortal to ever encounter them now.)

And yeah, Exalted can also (and, in the First Age, often did) hold positions in the Celestial Bureaucracy, although the benefits for this are fairly limited -- you get a salary (in Ambrosia and possibly Quintessence, which is not a small thing) and some bureaucratic perks depending on the job and on how corrupt you want to be, but it's generally small potatoes compared to what you already have naturally by being Exalted, and you're giving up a lot of your freedom.

[JerryMcJerrison]

Let me make sure this is clear, as it seems to be a bit of confusion. The gods aren't like D&D gods where a super strong dude, or stealthy, etc, decided they wanted to be god of toasters, beards, and ear rings. The mere fact that there are ear rings means there is a god of them.
Also, the gods of individual objects (Little Gods) are usually barely sentient, since their objects aren't very important. One of the best ways to improve something, though, is to pray to/directly enlighten its little god, which will use pretty much anything it's got to ensure it's purview's well being.

Gods can be promoted and change purviews as well. My favorite example was Ahlat. Ahlat was originally the god of bull walrus mating duels in the North. When he led a bunch of his worshipers (bull walruses, of course) against a Fair Folk invasion, he got promoted to God of Cattle in the South. When he demanded oodles of sacrifices from his new worshipers, they made war on each other to steal cattle to sacrifice. This led to him being promoted to Southern God of War and Cattle.

[Kyeudo]

However, it is possible for a mortal to be uplifted into 'proper' divinity, albeit extremely rare (the head of the Bureau of Serenity -- who was a favored lover of Venus -- is the only canonical example I can think of. It's probably impossible now, since it seems as though only the Incarnae can do it and there's no real way for a mortal to ever encounter them now.)


I'd say it's probably easier than that, seeing as any Sidereal with the right Charms can turn their pet dog into a minor god.

[Terraoblivion]

Uplifting mortals to divinity, isn't that uncommon, Aquillon. Quite a few gods can do it, there is even a spirit charm that has that effect once it has been used a few times on a mortal. Talespinner, one of the gods of Great Forks, is another high profile example of an uplifted mortal.

It is still more common for mortals to become elementals, though.

[Aquillion]

Anyway, have you guys ever thought about using the Exalted ruleset to something else but Exalted. The Exalted ruleset is considered pretty fluff-defendant, and rightfully so, but I think for a few changes, it should be possible to import to some specific "anime" settings (perhaps Diebuster?)Also:

Claymore. The Claymores are sort of like a cross between purely combat-focused Solar Exalted with a few Lunar charms and drawbacks (like the Lunar charm to extend your limbs and, of course, the tendency to turn into the equivalent of Chimerae.) They wield giant Daiklaves swords that nobody else can lift, can heal rapidly, have a pool of 'essence' they can draw on, and so on. Instead of an Anima banner, their bodies become inhuman and monstrous when they use too much at once, but it's the same general thing from a mechanical perspective.

[Artanis]

I would like to preface this post by saying that it is only intended to add information that I've seen, not to refute what Aquillion is saying. So please take it in that context:


However, it is possible for a mortal to be uplifted into 'proper' divinity, albeit extremely rare (the head of the Bureau of Serenity -- who was a favored lover of Venus -- is the only canonical example I can think of. It's probably impossible now, since it seems as though only the Incarnae can do it and there's no real way for a mortal to ever encounter them now.)
In 2nd edition, I have no idea, and this may very well be the case.


In 1st edition, the splatbook with God-Blooded in it says that there is a way to give a mortal outright divinity: Endowment of Essence.

Using Endowment of Essence to give a second dot of Essence to a mortal makes that mortal a God-Blood, Demon-Blood, or Half-Caste, as appropriate to the user. Using Endowment of Essence to give a God-Blood or Demon-Blood (including "created" ones) a fourth dot of Essence transforms them into an outright elemental, little god, or demon, as appropriate to their heritage

Half-Caste are also affected by having their Essence raised to 4 (by anybody, not just the parent). DB Half-Castes who are bumped to 4 get an immediate test for Exaltation with a big bonus. Celestial and Solar Half-Caste get a powerful "letter of reference", so to speak, to the parent's patron. Theoretically, the patron could Exalt the kid, but thus far there's no record of them doing so (though there are plenty of cases of deification of some sort). Abyssal Half-Caste get some other sort of Endowment instead of the extra dot of Essence.

[horseboy]

I wouldn't suggest D&D as an alternate system, but that's because I kind of don't like it. This is totally personal, but I don't think the system of feats and spells adequately reflects the skill and mastery of the Exalted. Without massive changes to the skill system and powers system, you couldn't reflect the breadth and depth of skill of individual exalts... I dunno, I'd have to see a D&D adaption for Exalted before condemning it.You know "back in the day" when I was "volunteered" to St an oWoD chronicle, I usually ripped the combat mechanics out and replaced them with their native Shadowrun. Games went soo much smother without all the weird 30d10 big bunch of whiff.

Exalted actually has a dedicated workforce on the Loom of Fate (which determines every single aspect of the world) called Pattern Spiders, who, appropriately, weave on the Loom of Fate.
Oh man, you're making me miss my Glass Walker Thurge. Ah, "back in the day" of binding pattern spiders to rolls of duct tape.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I see. So say a solar were to found a city. He couldn't become the patron god of his own city because there'd already be one instantly created at the city's founding, and he wouldn't want to become the god of his own city anyway because he can get a lot more done and have a lot less rules to follow by just being a Solar. You don't need to be a god to change the world for the better, you just have to make as much of an impact as you possibly can in the time you have and hope that your next incarnation doesn't undo all the work your current one did. Would I be right in saying that?

[Artanis]

Pretty much.

Note, however, that "the time you have" can be a VERY long time: Exalted lifespans are measured in millenia. Assuming they don't get themselves killed, of course :smallcool:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

So if a Solar founded a city, and managed to keep himself alive, he could rule it for generations?

[Iethloc]

Solars live 2000-3000 years, as do Lunars. Sidereals live 4000-5000 years, and Dragon-Bloods live 250-300.

Neither Abyssals nor Gods age at all, and I don't know about Infernals.

Of course, there's ways around dying of age...Immortality Stone, most likely. There's also using Duck Fate on dying of age (or even aging itself after you're old enough to have no Essence cap) for Sidereals. You only need to avoid a continuous effect once with Duck Fate. :smalltongue:

[Kyeudo]

Solars live 2000-3000 years, as do Lunars. Sidereals live 4000-5000 years, and Dragon-Bloods live 250-300.


Odd. I could swear Solars and Lunars max out at 5000 years and Sidereals at 10000 years. Dragon-Blooded do average 300 years, but the Scarlet Empress is over 700 and Memnon isn't too far behind and neither is noted at using any overly special tricks to avoid dying.

[BobVosh]

Pretty sure Iethloc got it right. Not terribly important, in most games, as it is easy to become immortal if you want to.

[Sicarius]

Chejop Kejak is close to dying. He's the best benchmark for a Sidereal's natural lifespan.

[Learnedguy]

Also, the gods of individual objects (Little Gods) are usually barely sentient, since their objects aren't very important. One of the best ways to improve something, though, is to pray to/directly enlighten its little god, which will use pretty much anything it's got to ensure it's purview's well being.

That's kinda cute isn't it, having your own private god doing everything in it's power to ensure your self being:smallbiggrin:?

Anyway, my favorite solar caste is definitively the eclipse one. That contract ability sounds like a lot of fun:smallwink:

[Revlid]

Out of curiosity - a friend of mine is shuffling around ideas for a Bleach roleplay. It sounds like the mechanics of Exalted would fit this pretty well - thoughts?

[Lochar]

Chejop Kejak is close to dying. He's the best benchmark for a Sidereal's natural lifespan.

For those of you who the name means nothing, he was one of THE masterminds of the Usurpation of the Solars.

[Cubey]

Out of curiosity - a friend of mine is shuffling around ideas for a Bleach roleplay. It sounds like the mechanics of Exalted would fit this pretty well - thoughts?

Not that good idea, even if Soul Society roughly resembles Yu-Shan. The Charms, Sorceries and the mote system are just too Exalted-specific. Especially since each Shinigami has their own unique abilities, and Charms are either generic/streamlined, or very specifically tailored for Exalted.
The rest of the system might be okay, but you need to heavily homebrew specific powers and special abilities to fit Bleach.

[Artanis]

Although Ichigo's sword would make a pretty good example of a black jade daiklave :smallbiggrin:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Uh...what's a daiklave?

[Lochar]

Artifact swords.

Think Ichigo's Shikai, or Cloud's Buster Sword.

Or even bigger. Guts' sword.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Okay, drawing a blank here. Never watched Bleach, never played Final Fantasy VII and never watched Berserk.

[chiasaur11]

Okay, drawing a blank here. Never watched Bleach, never played Final Fantasy VII and never watched Berserk.

I'm guessing this thing means Big Freaking Sword.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

That's it? It's a big sword. Yawn-o-rama...

[Learnedguy]

Out of curiosity - a friend of mine is shuffling around ideas for a Bleach roleplay. It sounds like the mechanics of Exalted would fit this pretty well - thoughts?

Well the basic mechanics could probably catch the feel of the fighting quite nicely.

The problem would be to deal with the Shinigami magic (might not really be that hard, just rename a charm or something) and worse, figuring out how to work those shikai, bankai things.

With that said, Bleach is kinda boorish. Doesn't he have some more interesting setting to play around with instead:smallyuk:?

[Artanis]

Uh...what's a daiklave?


That's it? It's a big sword. Yawn-o-rama...

A Daiklave is a sword with a blade that's 4 feet long and (IIRC) 6 inches wide. It is so heavy that non-Exalts cannot wield it, even two-handed, period. Exalts, however, use it just like a normal sword (e.g. a longsword).

A Grand Daiklave (which has been mentioned a few times) is a variant of Daiklave with a blade that's SIX FEET long and a full foot wide. Even an Exalt has to use it two-handed, and it takes a very strong non-Exalt to so much as lift the damn thing.


Edit: Gimme a second and I'll find some pics of the characters being mentioned.

Edit 2: Here we go.

Daiklave (http://tvmedia.ign.com/tv/image/article/773/773844/bleach-ichigo-zangetsu_1174343520.jpg)
That's Ichigo, from Bleach

Grand Daiklave (http://i33.tinypic.com/2n7ea9.jpg)
That's Cloud from Final Fantasy 7. His sword is actually a foot shorter than a Grand Daikalve, but just as wide.

[Scintillatus]

I like the idea of Exalted, but it really seems to try too hard, imho. I have trouble getting into it, because on one hand you have crapsack world, mortals empowered by the gods to defend/destroy creation, dark and gritty and complex, and then you have dinosaurs that piss heroin and giant robots which are not explained adequately.

No trouble with Scion, but Exalted has roadblocks.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

A Daiklave is a sword with a blade that's 4 feet long and (IIRC) 6 inches wide. It is so heavy that non-Exalts cannot wield it, even two-handed, period. Exalts, however, use it just like a normal sword (e.g. a longsword).

A Grand Daiklave (which has been mentioned a few times) is a variant of Daiklave with a blade that's SIX FEET long and a full foot wide. Even an Exalt has to use it two-handed, and it takes a very strong non-Exalt to so much as lift the damn thing.


Edit: Gimme a second and I'll find some pics of the characters being mentioned.

Edit 2: Here we go.

Daiklave (http://tvmedia.ign.com/tv/image/article/773/773844/bleach-ichigo-zangetsu_1174343520.jpg)
That's Ichigo, from Bleach

Grand Daiklave (http://i33.tinypic.com/2n7ea9.jpg)
That's Cloud from Final Fantasy 7. His sword is actually a foot shorter than a Grand Daikalve, but just as wide.

So...they're giant steak knives? Because those pictures remind me of steak knives.

[Artanis]

So...they're giant steak knives? Because those pictures remind me of steak knives.
Those pictures were to give you an idea of the size. They look like whatever the creator wants them to look like, which doesn't look like a steak knife (unless the creator is kinda wierd).

Part of the awesomeness of Daiklaves is that they aren't "just big swords", it's what Exalts can do with something that big. Can you imagine what it'd be like trying to use something the size of Cloud's sword? For that matter, can you imagine just trying to lift the thing? But an Exalt with a Grand Daiklave is every bit as quick as a Scot with his Claymore. And an Exalt with a Daiklave the size of a baseball bat can put Zorro to shame.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

:smalleek:

Dude...I want one of those!

:smallcool:

[Lochar]

1: That picture of Cloud has been stolen for my desktop now.

2: Daiklave's kick serious butt. An Exalted with one of those and even a modicum of training cause serious amounts of damage. Not to mention that as long as you keep the basics the same (size, length, and damage), they can look and feel like just about anything.

For example, the Abyssal daiklaves are made of soulsteel. That's literally the souls of people forged into metal. The weapon could then show the screaming faces of those souls forged into the metal as they try to claw their way out. And their clawing is actually what causes the blade to deal damage, not just the blade's edge.

[Kyeudo]

:smalleek:

Dude...I want one of those!

:smallcool:

Then there are the other artifact weapons, like Grand Goremauls (think tank-crushing sledge hammers), Grimcleavers (giant axes that can fell a tree with a single swing), Dire Chains, and Razor Claws (makes Wolverine feel small).

And then on top of that are the artifact weapons that have additional powers, like the Daiklave of Conquest, which turns an army from ordinary shmoes into a nigh-invincible wave of fearless heroes.

[Emong]

And then of course you have the warstriders, which are basically magic Gundams.

Made from gods. (Okay, it's just the one spell that makes them out of gods, but still.)

[Kyeudo]

And then of course you have the warstriders, which are basically magic Gundams.

Made from gods. (Okay, it's just the one spell that makes them out of gods, but still.)

Unless they are made of Starmetal, in which case they are made from dead gods.

[Artanis]

Or Alchemicals, in which case they are Exalted :smalltongue:

[JerryMcJerrison]

We haven't even gotten into the N/A rated artifacts, like the Five-Metal Shrike and the Thousand-Forged Dragons. Or that giant terraforming statue that's so large that someone built a city inside of it's crossed legs, aptly named the Lap.

[Tengu_temp]

I like the idea of Exalted, but it really seems to try too hard, imho. I have trouble getting into it, because on one hand you have crapsack world, mortals empowered by the gods to defend/destroy creation, dark and gritty and complex, and then you have dinosaurs that piss heroin and giant robots which are not explained adequately.

No trouble with Scion, but Exalted has roadblocks.

Ugh, misconceptions sewn by TV Tropes. Exalted is not grim and gritty nor a crapsack world, unless you're considering every fantasy setting that's not all candy cities, unicorns and prancing faeries to be grim and gritty.

[Kantolin]

So...they're giant steak knives? Because those pictures remind me of steak knives.

If you ask me, they look a bit more like metal doors with handles on them. :smallwink: But hey.

[Lochar]

I like the idea of Exalted, but it really seems to try too hard, imho. I have trouble getting into it, because on one hand you have crapsack world, mortals empowered by the gods to defend/destroy creation, dark and gritty and complex, and then you have dinosaurs that piss heroin and giant robots which are not explained adequately.

No trouble with Scion, but Exalted has roadblocks.

It's not a crapsack world. The Solars are back, and are attempting to make it better.

Complex is a good thing. Being this does not mean you're always evil, being that does not mean you're always good.

Dark and gritty? You get the power to reform the world. Hell, play a Solar, gain some XP, and go out into the Wyld. Form your own damn world of Creation straight out of the Wyld. There are charms to do it.


I can't explain the dinosaurs, seeing as I've never run into them. But the giant robots? It's a bunch of p-envy. "Oh look, I made some really wicked armor" "Oh yeah? I'll build something even bigger and badder". Eventually, you get armor big enough to be called a battlesuit, then a 'robot' or a warstrider. The Celestial Exalted measure their lives at a minimum in centuries. Where else do you go but up?

[JerryMcJerrison]

The heroin dinosaurs are easy enough to explain. Back in Ye Olde Dayes, the Solars bred dinosaurs that basically act like chemical refineries. All you need to do is feed them the raw ingredients to whatever drug they're bred to refine and provide them with water. See, now the Solars had a very important decision to make: Which direction do the drugs come out of? A vote was made, and apparently noone wants to get high off dinosaur crap.

They don't just do heroin, either, there used to be a Creation Kennel Club breed for pretty much any widely used drugs, it's just that most of the ones that are left currently make heroin. The Realm has one that makes lifespan-lengthening stuff, for example.

[The Mormegil]

My main problem with Exalted is that it has too little Storyteller support, as does every White-Wolf game. Since this is a bit of a controversial statement, before attacking me please read what I mean.

The problem is not that they have too little fluff (in fact, they are pretty much too fluff-dependant for my games, but that's another problem entirely). They have great worlds, described with great details and so on.
The problem is that complete lack of tables. I am used to DMing in D&D (4E now) and I just *love* the support the DMG gives to a Dungeon Master during the planning time. I love all the tables that indicate how much loot they should gain, how many XPs I should give, how hard a DC should be for them to be a challenge and so on. I change them a lot, truth be told, but they are there, and I cannot change what doesn't exist.
And the major problem comes from monsters. What, exactly, should a party be able to kill? What should I place to challenge them, what if I want them to run away, what if I want them to have a small fight? Here also steps in another problem (which is balance, which is important in my group because we have... many different people... and different ideas of "fun"...). I don't have any rules about challange ratings and such. Maybe I'm just too lazy to figure out what I should place and when and where, but... I'm still not that confident with the system (I should say I was: we abandoned it some months ago) and I would love some advice about it. If not really the precise tables I'm used to have in D&D, at least some general advice about it...)

[Kyeudo]

How much loot to give? As much or as little as you want. Artifacts are self limiting, due to Essence commitment.

How many XPs to give? 4 per session, +/- 2 for longer or shorter sessions. Bonus XP for particularly cool stunts at your discretion.

How hard a difficult needs to be to challenge them? A difficulty equal to half their dice pool gives them an average of a 50% chance. Adjust to account for Excellencies and your preferred challenge rating.

What can a circle of Exalts kill? Look through the Core Book and find the Mask of Winters. A Circle of combat-specced Solars can take him out with good planning and some luck with only a little additional XP from starting, so pretty much anything you can throw at them is fair game.

What can make a Circle of Exalted run away? Not much.

What qualifies as a small fight? Any fight made entirely of Extras won't even scratch an Exalt. Heroic mortals and ordinary animals don't last long either.

What to use to challenge them? This is tricky, but there is a threat guage after the Charm section in the second edition Core book, which helps. You only need to challenge the primary combatants of the Circle, with some mooks to tie up the social/mental specced members of the Circle. Mostly, you fudge things out and rely on the fact that a Circle of Exalts is very hard to kill to cover your discrepancies.

Everything but the last item on that list is from the Core book.

As for game balance, define "balance." Exalted specced for different things can dominate different aspects of the game. One can convince anyone of anything, one can kill anything that moves, another can be impossible to find, and a another can bend the laws of physics to his will if you give him enough prep time. Give them a goal, and they will take entirely different routes to get to it, but all will achieve it in the end.

[Gralamin]

I'm just curious about an Idea I had while reading over the Exalted rulebook. How well do playgrounder's think that Exalted (2nd Edition) could handle MTG style planeswalking adventurers (Players play as Planeswalkers using Exalted castes or some sort of variant)? The power level seems about right, at least.

[Justyn]

Ugh, misconceptions sewn by TV Tropes. Exalted is not grim and gritty nor a crapsack world, unless you're considering every fantasy setting that's not all candy cities, unicorns and prancing faeries to be grim and gritty.

Creation is no Imperium of Mankind, but it's certainly no paradise, especially if you are a normal human.

[Oslecamo]

Ugh, misconceptions sewn by TV Tropes. Exalted is not grim and gritty nor a crapsack world, unless you're considering every fantasy setting that's not all candy cities, unicorns and prancing faeries to be grim and gritty.

Dark? Definetely not, with all the guys glowing like a thousand sons at least.

Gritty and crapsack world? Oh yes. Let's review the facts:
1-The world itself is being torn apart, geting smaller each day, and the only beings who could prevent this are too busy backstabbing each other left and right to prove their coolness.
2-If you're not lucky enough to get super powers from birth, you're pretty much sentenced to a life of mediocrity as the guys with super powers hoard all the best things on the world for themselves.
3-God exists but can't help you. It can just try to help you, and then get stomped by your friendly neighbour super powered being who is too busy making heroine pissing dinossaurs and having orgies to care that the world is slowly being destroyed. Wich makes the situation even more desesperate.

But what matters that to an exalted? They can stomp anyone who dares to defy them! Power corrupts, and exalted are as corrupt as you can get.

WH40K chaos forces would be proud. At least the Imperium of man has a little glimpse of hope. In Exalted world, your best bet in life is to see everything come to an end as the super powered guys have a party over the bodies of those who tried to prevent the final destruction.

Just think well. The primordials created everything, and kept it going, and then the gods backstabbed them because they wanted to be in charge. And then the solars got backstabbed by their lesser brothers because they were too busy having a party to notice the world around them was being torn apart. Exalted storyline is a series of backstabbing of the people who're trying to set things right. And with each backstabbing the world gets worst as knowledge and resources are lost.

When did Exalteds ever help the world more than they destroyed it?

[The Mormegil]

How much loot to give? As much or as little as you want. Artifacts are self limiting, due to Essence commitment.

So you mean loot doesn't affect characters at all? It's just "cool" and flavorful, but it does not increase their overall efficacy? What good is it, then?
And if loot does indeed provide bonuses, how come there are no rules about it in the books? Since having a magic sword (pardon, an artifact) increases my combat power, I should have something that either says what I should do to rebalance my encounters or how much I should give to my players every Y XPs or something. It shouldn't be ignored.


How many XPs to give? 4 per session, +/- 2 for longer or shorter sessions. Bonus XP for particularly cool stunts at your discretion.

Ok, I made a wrong example right there. My bad.


How hard a difficult needs to be to challenge them? A difficulty equal to half their dice pool gives them an average of a 50% chance. Adjust to account for Excellencies and your preferred challenge rating.

And that means I have to know what my characters' dice pools are (not really a problem, but an inconvenience), then account for their charms, and think about how many motes they will be able to/will want to spend on EVERY SINGLE TASK. That's a lot of work for a single roll...
Not counting the balance problem (see below).


What can a circle of Exalts kill? Look through the Core Book and find the Mask of Winters. A Circle of combat-specced Solars can take him out with good planning and some luck with only a little additional XP from starting, so pretty much anything you can throw at them is fair game.

Good. So... is it a good challange? Any other good challenge in the book? In other books? How many? Are there ANY RULES to INVENT creatures? Do you use the same rules as PCs? How do you balance them on the party? Do you have to do all of this alone? Every time?


What can make a Circle of Exalted run away? Not much.
What qualifies as a small fight? Any fight made entirely of Extras won't even scratch an Exalt. Heroic mortals and ordinary animals don't last long either.[/QUOTE]

Ok.


What to use to challenge them? This is tricky, but there is a threat guage after the Charm section in the second edition Core book, which helps. You only need to challenge the primary combatants of the Circle, with some mooks to tie up the social/mental specced members of the Circle. Mostly, you fudge things out and rely on the fact that a Circle of Exalts is very hard to kill to cover your discrepancies.

First, if resurrection is impossible and I have "social/mental specced members" I cannot place something challenging to the main fighters. In a system without limitations on movement, AoOs and such, why should the enemy care about him and not just kill the others first? At range, possibly? I can see an Exalt picking up a rock, throw it at another Exalt who's not specced for combat with some crazy Throw Charm and kill him on the spot... Then that member of the Circle is out of the games, clear and simple. Forever. What then, "sorry Jim, you didn't spec combat, roll up a Dawn for next session?" Just to have the same situation, reversed, in a social situation?

Second, if the system works and now I only have to challenge the "main" party member in each situation... How can I? Are there any rules, any kind of support in the books? I no longer have the core book, so... what is this threat gauge chapter? Is it like a sort of CR system? Does it provide actual help to define what a party (or a party member, since it seems Exalted is supposed to be a game of specialization more than a game of cooperation - which I don't like but it's another story) can manage to do? Does it help creating appropriate challenges? How?


As for game balance, define "balance." Exalted specced for different things can dominate different aspects of the game. One can convince anyone of anything, one can kill anything that moves, another can be impossible to find, and a another can bend the laws of physics to his will if you give him enough prep time. Give them a goal, and they will take entirely different routes to get to it, but all will achieve it in the end.

I don't really like this. I like different specializations for party members, of course, but...
Well, I like 4E because roles are different but everyone must cooperate to win a battle and everyone is useful and special. I like it also because out of combat it's pretty much the same: some people know how to do some things, other know how to do other things, they cooperate and arrive at a solution together, maybe using different skills.
Here it seems that the characters are so different that if a situation needs a certain ability, ONE of them takes care of it. The others are so far behind that they actually cannot do anything to help him. It's not cooperating, it's alternating between "solo" adventures.

Define balance you say. Okay: balance in a game means that everyone, in almost every situation, has something useful to do. It means that even if two characters are the exact opposite on character spectrum they are equally useful in a certain situation. Balance also means that at equl cost comes equal prize. It means that if I choose to specialize in a certain area, I should be powerful as much as anyone else that invested the same number of points on the same area.

A Dawn Caste grand daiklave warrior with all his points spent in combat powers and Charms is not going to feel useful in ANY WAY in a social situation. An Eclipse Caste bureoucrat is going to be completely useless in combat.
If any one of the characters is caught in a situation where he doesn't "belong", he's probably screwed. Well, that's not "balanced".

Also, quoting a little bit FatR on this (although I don't agree completely with him), two Dawn Castes, one with a Grand Daiklave, the other with a Reaper Daiklave (was it called like this? The rapier version...) are not equal in combat power. The two weapons cost the same (IIRC) but they are SO MUCH different in terms of combat optimization. That's not balanced. And the problem doesn't end there, it starts there. Look at different Charms and Charm trees.

[Aquillion]

First, if resurrection is impossible and I have "social/mental specced members" I cannot place something challenging to the main fighters. In a system without limitations on movement, AoOs and such, why should the enemy care about him and not just kill the others first? At range, possibly?There is a difference between "not specced for combat" and "totally defenseless." Your typical social/mental specced character is still going to have things like perfect defenses and Ox Body Technique and so on -- they're just not going to have fancy combos or charms necessary to attack and defend at once. But they won't need to.

Also, enemies should behave realistically. Only the most unusual (or insane psychopathic-storyteller-metagaming characters) are going to ignore the warrior howling with rage and repeatedly hacking at them with a gigantic diaklave in favor of the mild-mannered scholar standing on the sidelines. After all, wasting actions (and your one charm, or wasting the activation of a combo) just to hit someone who isn't a threat makes very little sense.

This isn't Dungeons and Dragons, where the 'squishy' characters are almost always dangerous mages who have to be killed fast or they'll throw an insta-die spell at you in the same time it takes to swing a sword. Sorcery in Exalted is generally obvious, takes a while, makes you an obvious target in combat, and can be used by anyone regardless of their armor or appearance. Absent that, barring a few very odd cases, it makes no sense for enemies to go after less dangerous enemies when there are more dangerous ones currently attacking them, and an enemy trying to 'soften them up' with an initial attack is going to aim it at whoever looks like the biggest threat -- i.e. the muscular warrior with a daiklave swung on his back, not the foppish dandy. Most sane, non-suicidal opponents who are not specifically out to kill one person should be run under the assumption that they're trying to win the fight, and that means identifying and incapacitating the biggest threats first -- less dangerous people can wait.

But, again, even non-combatant characters should have the basic defensive tricks, and in Exalted, fighting multiple people at once (or even just wasting your attacks on someone who is focused entirely on defense) is a good way to get slaughtered -- while my social-specced character is spending every action and charm on defense, my combat-specced ally is beating your ass six ways from Sunday. You can't afford to waste actions and charms trying to get past my limited defenses while he's doing that. Even from a psychopathic-storyteller perspective, focusing on the weakest link isn't necessarily going to be an effective strategy.


But what matters that to an exalted? They can stomp anyone who dares to defy them! Power corrupts, and exalted are as corrupt as you can get.That's not quite true. There have been genuine Exalted heroes in the world. Salina in the First Age, say, was determined to eliminate hierarchy, creating a society based on equality and personal responsibility. She crafted the great Salinian working, which essentially reshaped nature itself to teach sorcery to anyone who had the capabilities (this is a good thing, basically, since it took the power out of the hands of a few secretive colleges -- and it's a particularly good thing for Second Age solars, but that's incidental to its intent.) Her ultimate goal was to find a way to make all circles of Sorcery available to everyone, mortal and exalted alike.

Many of the Lunars share similar goals, trying to create a strong society that doesn't rely on the Exalted. Some of them use monstrous means for social engineering (think Werewolf Stalin), but for every horrible monster there are also some are managing legitimate improvements.

The first age was not perfect for everyone, and sure, it had horrible people like Desus walking around (although even Desus wasn't quite as horrible as the tvtropes page would indicate). But to put things in perspective, there were only 700 Exalted total, and only 300 Solars, of which many were recluses, and most of which spent most of their time in their capital city. The vast majority of mortals never even encountered a Solar.

And beyond that, first-age mortals had advantages similar to what we have today. They had medicine that could cure literally anything (for free, mind you.) They had universal teaching and education devices powered by a benevolent AI, and literacy was basically universal. Starvation was almost unheard of. Yes, there were occasional atrocities... but overall, while they weren't free, their life was in many ways as good or better than what we have here. Slavery was banned. Crime was kept mostly under control. There were no widespread diseases or plagues. There were actually some forces (like Salina) who envisioned and were working for something even better, where people were legitimately free under their own power and didn't have to rely on or bow down to the Exalted.

Compare that to the Second Age -- they're still not free, and now everything else sucks.

[Oslecamo]

Compare that to the Second Age -- they're still not free, and now everything else sucks.

They're not all free, but there are more free. So one can see that the more solars are released, the worst the world gets.

And the reason why they were locked in the first place was because 99% of them were too busy partying with their cool powers instead of doing something productive. Even if there were some like Salina who actually wanted to improve the world, the remaining 99% are working against that objective. So, you need to deal with them first, and only then you can improve the world.

After all, who created everything in the first place? The primordials. How did the gods and mortals thanked them? By backstabbing them. So no wonder everything is falling apart, since they banished/zombified the ones who were preventing that. It goes to show how gratitude works in the Exalted world. Help someone, and the best you can expect is for them to wake up with a dagger in your throat. Just look at the exalted themselves. Used to take down the primordials, and then locked up in a prison.

[JerryMcJerrison]

They're not all free, but there are more free. So one can see that the more solars are released, the worst the world gets.

And the reason why they were locked in the first place was because 99% of them were too busy partying with their cool powers instead of doing something productive. Even if there were some like Salina who actually wanted to improve the world, the remaining 99% are working against that objective. So, you need to deal with them first, and only then you can improve the world.

After all, who created everything in the first place? The primordials. How did the gods and mortals thanked them? By backstabbing them. So no wonder everything is falling apart, since they banished/zombified the ones who were preventing that. It goes to show how gratitude works in the Exalted world. Help someone, and the best you can expect is for them to wake up with a dagger in your throat. Just look at the exalted themselves. Used to take down the primordials, and then locked up in a prison.

I'd rather have the Solars back, who could have the Great Curse removed, than let Creation get destroyed, by one method or another. Which I'm pretty sure is guaranteed unless someone blows up the Pleasure Dome and the UC gets bored. Even then he might not want to deal with the paperwork.

The Primordials themselves, if memory serves, weren't much better than the gods. They pretty much spent all their time either in the Dome getting their game on, or down in Creation romping around and blowing stuff up, leaving it for the gods to clean up. So mortals were screwed in every situation, its just that the First Age was the only one where someone was helping them at all.

[Tengu_temp]

Creation is no Imperium of Mankind, but it's certainly no paradise, especially if you are a normal human.

Well yeah. Living in a typical fantasy setting, between orc raiders on the left, bandits on the right, undead on the cemetary and dragons flying overhead, is no paradise either, yet nobody calls it grimdark. Exalted is darker than a typical fantasy setting, but not much more - just some.

[Artanis]

And don't forget, Exalted aren't inherently evil. Well, other than Infernals and most Abyssals, but I digress. Solars in particular don't Exalt unless they have truly, epically world-altering goals. Wiping out disease; destroying the Deathlords; teaching every man, woman, and child the techniques necessary to defend themselves against some of the threats in the world; driving back the Fair Folk by making the world itself larger - these are the kinds of things that every Solar wants.

To my mind, the main factors that make Exalts turn "evil", such as what happened to the Solars at the end of the first age, are:
1) Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
2) The Neverborn said, "and that goes double for you Exalted".

Imagine a mere mortal who suddenly finds himself with (effectively) eternal life, power to match, and a gift card with "1 Free Kingdom" printed on it. He'd go on with his grand plans to change the world, and would probably do a lot of good (assuming he didn't get himself killed too quickly). One day, just like any mortal, he'd notice, "ya know, these peasant girls are throwing themselves at my feet a lot...it wouldn't hurt to spend the night with one, would it? I mean, I did just wipe out an army of Fair Folk who would've killed them anyways, and the blonde one is kinda pretty..."

Now tack on another 3000 years of that, speed up the degeneration into debauchery (or tyranny or mad scientist-ery or whatever the case may be) by a factor of 2 or more due to the Great Curse, and multiply by 700 Celestial Exalts. You will wind up with the glorious, terrible days that marked the end of the Solar Deliberative.

[Aquillion]

They're not all free, but there are more free. So one can see that the more solars are released, the worst the world gets.Disagree. In the First Age, even if the Solars were sometime tyrannical, and even if they ruled by fiat, anyone with a mortal soul still had some theoretically inalienable rights that could not be violated. Not only that, but they did have recourse for these rights, even if it was not perfect or reliable -- in the First Age, prayers were much more commonly addressed directly to gods, and in a less corrupt world those gods were far more likely to intercede on their worshippers' behalf with the rulers of creation. There were far more routes to power and far more opportunities for education available even for the unexalted -- you could seek enlightenment and even gain the ability to channel essence, something that is illegal or totally unknown in most of the Second Age.

In the Second Age, the most commonly-cited rules of creation are the Sidereals, who are almost impossible to even know about, and the Dragon-Blooded, who keep the population ignorant and bar much of the opportunities for advancement that existed in the first age. Even the people who live outside of the Realm and Lookshy are still governed by the Sidereals, even if they don't know it... and they often have more serious reasons to not call them 'free', too. Even assuming they aren't being socially-engineered by the Lunars, they are often subject to creatures that aren't even human, from minor gods and spirits to the fey and the dead. Those who are outside of all of those survive because none of those factions think they're important enough to bother with (and, generally, they're just subjects of mortal tyrants, which is hardly an improvement.) In most of the world outright slavery -- which was banned under the Solar Deliberative -- is common. And this doesn't even get into the people who are now free in the sense that they no longer exist on account of their entire country having been eaten by the Wyld.

The Exalted universe is not our universe. It is a world shaped to have a specific divine order, with the Solars governing the laws of Creation to keep ithe spirits in line and reality intact, the Sidereals managing Fate, and so forth -- these tasks can't just be edited out (there is no way, say, to protect the world from Sidereal tyranny short of reshaping the nature of Fate itself to no longer require them.) When you murder the Solars, you're just exchanging them for the Sidereals (who can't do the job as well, but the sentiment is understandable.) If you murder the Sidereals to actually 'free' humanity, though, the Loom would eventually tangle, fail and reality itself would cease to exist. This isn't some abstract argument about authoritarianism vs. anarchy; Creation is only self-maintaining to a certain point, and unless there is some form of either Exalted or Incarnae-level gods in charge, it will fall apart.

Could it be changed? Sure, but the only people capable of doing that (and even remotely willing to do so) are the Solars (the Lunars think they are, and are making small changes to that effect, but they don't have an actual plan to let Creation run without Sidereal interference.) That would be an interesting basis for a campaign. Salina's Exaltation is still out there -- assuming it hasn't ended up in an Abyssal -- and while she was not representative of the Deliberative, she wasn't alone, either -- she was the head of the third great branch of sorcerous philosophy, with many followers among the First Age Solars who admired her ideals. Many more Solars are likely to be willing to listen to it after having lived life on the other side for a while, rather than as god-princes of creation.

[Kyeudo]

So you mean loot doesn't affect characters at all? It's just "cool" and flavorful, but it does not increase their overall efficacy? What good is it, then?
And if loot does indeed provide bonuses, how come there are no rules about it in the books? Since having a magic sword (pardon, an artifact) increases my combat power, I should have something that either says what I should do to rebalance my encounters or how much I should give to my players every Y XPs or something. It shouldn't be ignored.


Here's a better breakdown:

Loot, stuff that has purely monetary value, bumps your Resources background up once you get enough of it. It means you can buy more stuff, but only ordinary stuff. Good for hiring a boat when you need it and properly used can be used to leverage a variety of situations, but won't replace hard work. Give your players as much as you want.

Gear, like Artifacts, do give bonuses, but they come with costs and problems. The eight motes you commit to your Grand Daiklave is eight motes you could have spent powering a Charm (perhaps the perfect defense that saves your life) and packing it around without catching peoples attention is impossible. Some artifacts take hearthstones to power them, and hearthstones are hard to get.

It's also only a weapon. It's not incredibly more likely to hit than ordinary steel, and hitting is the tricky part, with perfect and semi-perfect defenses all over the place. Once you do hit, you score an incredible amount of damage, so it helps you, but it won't win the fight for you. An ordinary greatsword can be almost as effective and is less problematic. Your players won't attune more artifacts than they think they can safely use and don't suffer from not having them.



And that means I have to know what my characters' dice pools are (not really a problem, but an inconvenience), then account for their charms, and think about how many motes they will be able to/will want to spend on EVERY SINGLE TASK. That's a lot of work for a single roll...
Not counting the balance problem (see below).


Don't worry about every single task. Most ordinary tasks, like climbing a tree or sneaking past a warehouse guard, are easy and the Exalted should succeed at them almost by default. Most difficulties you just pick a good difficulty for (like 1 or even 3 for tasks difficult for most mortals) and let your players beat it with ease.

Worry about when the Solar decides to scale the sheer castle walls barehanded in a rainstorm at night. That's an epic story moment there. Make it an extended roll, stack on the penalties for bad weather and poor visibility and let the difficulty be suitably epic (4, 5, or even higher). He'll still blow through the task, since that's what Exalted do, but he'll burn a chunk of Essence on it, which he'll want when he gets over the walls and needs to sneak past the guards or fight his way across the courtyard.

Most of the time you just eyeball the difficulty, since your players will have no more than a base 10 die dice pool and you want them to succeed anyway.



Good. So... is it a good challange? Any other good challenge in the book? In other books? How many? Are there ANY RULES to INVENT creatures? Do you use the same rules as PCs? How do you balance them on the party? Do you have to do all of this alone? Every time?


Depends on what you mean for a challenge. Do you mean a fight that leaves most of the party almost dead and have exhaused every resource they had? Then yes, the Mask of Winters and other similar threats are the only good challenges.

If you mean a fight where you succeed only after a lengthy battle with enemies that don't just fall over the first time they get hit, then there are plenty of challenges. A Fair Folk Catephract can take quite a beating before going down, same as a Dragon-Blooded.

As for making your own creatures, you're in the same boat as every other system. You arbitrarily assign stats to fit your concept, then compare it to threats of the right challenge level and trim it down or beef it up to approximately match.



First, if resurrection is impossible and I have "social/mental specced members" I cannot place something challenging to the main fighters. In a system without limitations on movement, AoOs and such, why should the enemy care about him and not just kill the others first? At range, possibly? I can see an Exalt picking up a rock, throw it at another Exalt who's not specced for combat with some crazy Throw Charm and kill him on the spot... Then that member of the Circle is out of the games, clear and simple. Forever. What then, "sorry Jim, you didn't spec combat, roll up a Dawn for next session?" Just to have the same situation, reversed, in a social situation?


As has been pointed out, the social spec members arn't defenseless. They are probably packing at least one Ox-Body Technique and have a set of defensive Charms that can keep them out of trouble. Plus, they are still Exalted, so they can hold their own in a fight by default. Stunt dice go a LONG way.



Second, if the system works and now I only have to challenge the "main" party member in each situation... How can I? Are there any rules, any kind of support in the books? I no longer have the core book, so... what is this threat gauge chapter? Is it like a sort of CR system? Does it provide actual help to define what a party (or a party member, since it seems Exalted is supposed to be a game of specialization more than a game of cooperation - which I don't like but it's another story) can manage to do? Does it help creating appropriate challenges? How?


The threat guage chapter gave you an idea of how to classify a threat on a 1 to 5 scale by their dice pools in a particular area, like soak, DV, attack, and damage. Threats capable of slaying an Exalt in one blow are a 5 in damage, threats capable of perfect attacks are a 5 in attack, and so forth. It's useful for guaging the threats presented by the creatures in the antagonists. Extras are usually a 1 accross the board, with heroic mortals rising to a 2 or even a 3 in some places.

As for challenge apropriate encounters, there are no such thing in Exalted. There are dramatically appropriate encounters. The characters get XP regardless of what goes on in a session, so you can pit them against a bandit horde or against a Second Circle Demon, so long as it serves the appropriate purpose in the story.



I don't really like this. I like different specializations for party members, of course, but...
Well, I like 4E because roles are different but everyone must cooperate to win a battle and everyone is useful and special. I like it also because out of combat it's pretty much the same: some people know how to do some things, other know how to do other things, they cooperate and arrive at a solution together, maybe using different skills.
Here it seems that the characters are so different that if a situation needs a certain ability, ONE of them takes care of it. The others are so far behind that they actually cannot do anything to help him. It's not cooperating, it's alternating between "solo" adventures.


In a way that's true and in a way it's not. In Combat, the characters who specced entirely for combat are going to dominate. There's just no way to beat an Exalt in his specialty without specializing there as well. But that doesn't make the rest of the Circle useless. They can still threaten the main enemy, although not as much as the Dawn Caste or the Twilight Caste twink, and they can certainly deal with the secondary enemies to keep them off the main combatants. They can do things to turn the battle to their friends advantage, coordinate attacks, use the enviroment, and a wide mess of other options.



Define balance you say. Okay: balance in a game means that everyone, in almost every situation, has something useful to do. It means that even if two characters are the exact opposite on character spectrum they are equally useful in a certain situation. Balance also means that at equl cost comes equal prize. It means that if I choose to specialize in a certain area, I should be powerful as much as anyone else that invested the same number of points on the same area.


Wait, what? "It means that even if two characters are the exact opposite on character spectrum they are equally useful in a certain situation." You mean that if I specialize in combat and he specializes in baking pies, we should both be equally useful in a combat situation? That makes little sense.

The rest does, and that's somewhat what Exalted tries to go for. A Solar specced in combat has his place in a social situation, if only to force the other guy to not ignore the threat of violence posed by his Zenith Circlemate, but usually more. He brings something to the table at every situation by the fact that he is Exalted. Two Dawn Castes, one specced in Melee and the other in Martial Arts, are roughly as effective as each other in combat.

Now, this doesn't hold true across types of Exalted. Terrestrials are everywhere inferior to a Solar of the same experience level. Lunars beat Solars at some things and lose at others, same with Sidereals. Abyssals are almost the same as Solars, but there are discrepancies there, depending on if you want to make something better or tear it down.



A Dawn Caste grand daiklave warrior with all his points spent in combat powers and Charms is not going to feel useful in ANY WAY in a social situation. An Eclipse Caste bureoucrat is going to be completely useless in combat.
If any one of the characters is caught in a situation where he doesn't "belong", he's probably screwed. Well, that's not "balanced".


I already covered this, but I'll reiterate: A Solar caught outside of his specialty will have difficulty, but he is not screwed. The Dawn Caste probably has a dot or two in Presence for inspiring troops, he's got a few dots in Charisma, and he's always got stunt dice. He can throw a Social attack capable of threatening everyone. Oh, he won't show up the Eclipse who specced for it, but he is not helpless.

The system is set up so that everyone has their "turf," their place to shine. A Dawn Caste claims the battlefield, the Twilight the library and the ritual circle, and the Eclipse Caste the king's court.

This, of course, looks at only what a single Exalt can do compared to another. What you should look at is what they can do together. A group of Exalts trying to defend a fortress from an invading army? The socialite in the group pulls some strings and gets the combat monkeys command positions in the defenders so they can meet the enemy head on, while the stealth expert might slip out to assassinate the enemy generals and sabotage supply lines. Togther, their talents are multiplicative, not just additive.



Also, quoting a little bit FatR on this (although I don't agree completely with him), two Dawn Castes, one with a Grand Daiklave, the other with a Reaper Daiklave (was it called like this? The rapier version...) are not equal in combat power. The two weapons cost the same (IIRC) but they are SO MUCH different in terms of combat optimization. That's not balanced. And the problem doesn't end there, it starts there. Look at different Charms and Charm trees.

Actually, a Reaper Daiklave is 1 dot cheaper and has several places where it beats the Grand Daiklave. A Reaper is faster at attacking, more accurate, costs less to attune, and is better on defense. It's made for a different style of fighting than the Grand Daiklave.

The Grand hits like a ton of bricks. One hit from it and you are either dead or crippled. The Reaper, however, won't kill you with one hit, but it will hit you much more often, chipping away at the enemies combat effectiveness until the decicive strike.

Charms are the same way. Sure, Archery doesn't carry the same brutal level of power that Melee does, but niether can Melee match Archery's range. A Solar archer can pick off a target half a mile away if they feel like it.

[Rockbird]

I get the feeling that the people who have so much problems with Exalted's rules are the ones trying to use a mallet to paint a picture, style of thing. While i agree on some points - for a newbie (like me) it is hard to eyeball the encounters properly, but i still think the main issue here is that people are trying to get intricate, tactical combats out of a system designed for flashy, over-the-top fights that look cool, rather than being tactically complex.

Or, that's my impression at least. :smallwink:

[Sicarius]

The reason why the Solars were locked up was Sidereal intervention. The Solars were not partying with their cool powers, the Solars were actually freaking nuts because of the Great Curse. The Limit Break is terrible and the Great Curse was much more potent (if I read my setting right). Whereas a Dawn Caste would get a little angry at being insulted, back in the First Age, the Solars would view someone standing in their way as an affront and move them, forcibly, and break stuff in the process. This would cause the Compassionate ones to also go nuts and weep like big blubbering babies.

Eventually, they started believing themselves better than everything, and the Unconquered Sun basically said "Screw You!" and turned his back on them. The Sidereals got together (and this was also influenced by the Great Curse), felt it was their duty to bind the Sidereals and ensure the preservation of Creation in a diminished form, kept by the hounds of the Solars, the Dragon-Blooded. (The alternate viewpoint of guiding the Solars back from madness was basically the biggest crapshoot in all of history. If the Sidereals won, Creation pretty much remains awesome forever. But if they lost, it disintegrates). So the Sidereals commiting ultimate Heavenly treason, bound the Sidereals and then broke a constellation to hide their involvement. An entire constellation had to be mucked up to destroy the evidence.

As for which was better, the First Age generally had more freedom. Essence-powered conveniences left much of the mundane drudgery of peasant living in the current Exalted age behind (imagine how much time you save when you have plumbing installed, and how much more work you can do with heating). That, and Creation was vast, even vaster than it was right now. The Solars amused themselves with grand parties, or quests of ridiculous or pointless scale, like walking from the Elemental Pole of Air to the Elemental Pole of Fire on your hands just because. The current Age has the actual enforcement of class inequality and widespread illiteracy so that the people are too busy and stupid to rebel against their Dragon-Blooded masters. The Threshold is gouged for money and receives little support from the Realm officially, and frequently political Dynasts take even more to fuel their race for the Scarlet Throne.

All in all, being a peasant mortal generally was as bad in Creation as it was in peasant reality. You grew up poor and hungry, worked your entire life for peanuts, died of sickness or famine, and you always knew that some people got everything reality could give them through no effort of their own. Of course, sometimes peasants just get caught in the crossfire, but that's just bad luck.

[Jerthanis]

And don't forget, Exalted aren't inherently evil. Well, other than Infernals and most Abyssals, but I digress.

What is Evil? A valid Infernalist character could wish to restore the world to when it was at its most complete, with the true rulers on the throne and everyone in their proper place... with the Underworld abolished and people living and reincarnating immediately upon their deaths.

A valid Abyssal character could recognize that life will never, ever be full of happiness, because time will wear away all achievements, and you'll be left with pain and sadness. Life is pain, and anyone who says differently is selling something. They wish to help the people of the world by leading them to Oblivion... a finality, an ultimate end, rather than the prison of rebirth they're trapped in.

I think Oslecamo just gave a host of good reasons why Infernalists and Abyssals could be rightly considered the good guys... from a certain point of view.

Still, you give a good example of how Solars could easily progress from Hero to Bugnuts.

Exalted is a world with problems so the PCs can solve problems. Would one criticize Eberron for not having already finished exploring Xendrick? Would one criticize Forgotten Realms for Cormyr allowing Thay and Zhentil keep to continue to exist?

[JerryMcJerrison]

What is Evil? A valid Infernalist character could wish to restore the world to when it was at its most complete, with the true rulers on the throne and everyone in their proper place... with the Underworld abolished and people living and reincarnating immediately upon their deaths.

A valid Abyssal character could recognize that life will never, ever be full of happiness, because time will wear away all achievements, and you'll be left with pain and sadness. Life is pain, and anyone who says differently is selling something. They wish to help the people of the world by leading them to Oblivion... a finality, an ultimate end, rather than the prison of rebirth they're trapped in.

I'd say destroying the entire world without giving anyone a choice is evil. Maybe if the Abyssal solely relied on religious sermon, magic free, to get people to give in to Oblivion, then sure, I wouldn't call that evil.

Same goes for the Infernals, although thats a bit fuzzier since they likely can't do it without hitting Creation's restart button.

[Kyeudo]

I'd say destroying the entire world without giving anyone a choice is evil. Maybe if the Abyssal solely relied on religious sermon, magic free, to get people to give in to Oblivion, then sure, I wouldn't call that evil.


But everyone is so obviously in pain! Just look at them! Their tears, their sorrows, their despair! Why wait for them to ask you before you end their suffering? Better the kindness of Oblivion than to be tortured eternally upon the rack of Life!

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I'm getting the impression that your main enemies in Exalted are generally other exalted. That there's no need for something like a Monster Manual, amiright?

[Rockbird]

Yes and No. While you generally fight other exalted, and you could just buy all the Manuals of Exalted Power (that is, the books for Dragonbloods, Lunars, Sidereals and Abyssals) the best option is to buy the ST Companion first. It contains simplified rules for all kinds of exalts, so you can use them as foes, but not play them.

[The Mormegil]

There is a difference between "not specced for combat" and "totally defenseless." Your typical social/mental specced character is still going to have things like perfect defenses and Ox Body Technique and so on -- they're just not going to have fancy combos or charms necessary to attack and defend at once. But they won't need to.
Also, enemies should behave realistically. Only the most unusual (or insane psychopathic-storyteller-metagaming characters) are going to ignore the warrior howling with rage and repeatedly hacking at them with a gigantic diaklave in favor of the mild-mannered scholar standing on the sidelines. After all, wasting actions (and your one charm, or wasting the activation of a combo) just to hit someone who isn't a threat makes very little sense.

What? You mean an intelligent enemy (most enemies ARE intelligent, the mooks are just mooks and deserve to be killed) wouldn't rather take down the guy who can get a whole army down his tail and manage to get the Realm after him with a letter when he can? It's easy, it's cost is almost nothing -apart from an action- and it wouldn't do that? I know, he loses a turn to the combat monkey. What if he then tries to escape? He kills 3/5 of the Circle then flies. They cannot be resurrected, the Circle now can be attacked easily on a social basis.
Even worse if this IS a minion (and a powerful one) that is in service of, say, an Abyssal. He is told to do the best tactical choice for his mater: kill the most members he can of the Circle. He'll be killed, ok, sure. So what? Say he was an Amalgam. What a pity, he was killed. Oh. I create another one. I severely hurt the Circle.


This isn't Dungeons and Dragons, where the 'squishy' characters are almost always dangerous mages who have to be killed fast or they'll throw an insta-die spell at you in the same time it takes to swing a sword. Sorcery in Exalted is generally obvious, takes a while, makes you an obvious target in combat, and can be used by anyone regardless of their armor or appearance. Absent that, barring a few very odd cases, it makes no sense for enemies to go after less dangerous enemies when there are more dangerous ones currently attacking them, and an enemy trying to 'soften them up' with an initial attack is going to aim it at whoever looks like the biggest threat -- i.e. the muscular warrior with a daiklave swung on his back, not the foppish dandy. Most sane, non-suicidal opponents who are not specifically out to kill one person should be run under the assumption that they're trying to win the fight, and that means identifying and incapacitating the biggest threats first -- less dangerous people can wait.
But, again, even non-combatant characters should have the basic defensive tricks, and in Exalted, fighting multiple people at once (or even just wasting your attacks on someone who is focused entirely on defense) is a good way to get slaughtered -- while my social-specced character is spending every action and charm on defense, my combat-specced ally is beating your ass six ways from Sunday. You can't afford to waste actions and charms trying to get past my limited defenses while he's doing that. Even from a psychopathic-storyteller perspective, focusing on the weakest link isn't necessarily going to be an effective strategy.

Ok, but from my perspective, MOST if not all of the times the enmies should aim at the weak spots of the Circle, not at the strong ones. I kill the socialites in an ambush, then get the Wyld Hunt on the rest until they die thanks to my social abilities. That would be the "intelligent" point of view.


Here's a better breakdown:
Loot, stuff that has purely monetary value, bumps your Resources background up once you get enough of it. It means you can buy more stuff, but only ordinary stuff. Good for hiring a boat when you need it and properly used can be used to leverage a variety of situations, but won't replace hard work. Give your players as much as you want.
Gear, like Artifacts, do give bonuses, but they come with costs and problems. The eight motes you commit to your Grand Daiklave is eight motes you could have spent powering a Charm (perhaps the perfect defense that saves your life) and packing it around without catching peoples attention is impossible. Some artifacts take hearthstones to power them, and hearthstones are hard to get.
It's also only a weapon. It's not incredibly more likely to hit than ordinary steel, and hitting is the tricky part, with perfect and semi-perfect defenses all over the place. Once you do hit, you score an incredible amount of damage, so it helps you, but it won't win the fight for you. An ordinary greatsword can be almost as effective and is less problematic. Your players won't attune more artifacts than they think they can safely use and don't suffer from not having them.

Ok, so, I do not give them gear or money when they deserve a prize for what they have done. What do I give them then? What can I give a Solar that is meaningful and increases his power to shape the world as he likes, what can I make them loot in a certain sense? Allies? Rules about that?


Don't worry about every single task. Most ordinary tasks, like climbing a tree or sneaking past a warehouse guard, are easy and the Exalted should succeed at them almost by default. Most difficulties you just pick a good difficulty for (like 1 or even 3 for tasks difficult for most mortals) and let your players beat it with ease.
Worry about when the Solar decides to scale the sheer castle walls barehanded in a rainstorm at night. That's an epic story moment there. Make it an extended roll, stack on the penalties for bad weather and poor visibility and let the difficulty be suitably epic (4, 5, or even higher). He'll still blow through the task, since that's what Exalted do, but he'll burn a chunk of Essence on it, which he'll want when he gets over the walls and needs to sneak past the guards or fight his way across the courtyard.
Most of the time you just eyeball the difficulty, since your players will have no more than a base 10 die dice pool and you want them to succeed anyway.

So, if I understand it right, I don't use dice when they are totally worthless, like, say, jumping on a chair [duh]... but I eyeball the difficulty when they are meaningful, and make my PCs waste resources on a totally arbitrary and improvised difficulty, so that my already difficult to calibrate encounters now are even more... difficult to calibrate? Wow.
And that doesn't answer to the problem of time expenditure: I think that most of the things an Exalt does are important enough to need dice to be determined, maily because I wouldn't be narrating them otherwise.


Depends on what you mean for a challenge. Do you mean a fight that leaves most of the party almost dead and have exhaused every resource they had? Then yes, the Mask of Winters and other similar threats are the only good challenges.

Huh? And I thought Exalted was about being awesome and epic. What gives you the feel of epicness, being able to single-handedly defeat most things or being able to survive an epic fight?


As for making your own creatures, you're in the same boat as every other system. You arbitrarily assign stats to fit your concept, then compare it to threats of the right challenge level and trim it down or beef it up to approximately match.

No, I'm not. I'm in the same boat as 3.5 D&D (which I abandoned for some reasons) but not 4E. Now, don't take this as critical as it sounds. I'm just saying my problems with the system, and trying to see if there's a way out of it (mainly because I love stunts :smallsmile:)


As has been pointed out, the social spec members arn't defenseless. They are probably packing at least one Ox-Body Technique and have a set of defensive Charms that can keep them out of trouble. Plus, they are still Exalted, so they can hold their own in a fight by default. Stunt dice go a LONG way
The threat guage chapter gave you an idea of how to classify a threat on a 1 to 5 scale by their dice pools in a particular area, like soak, DV, attack, and damage. Threats capable of slaying an Exalt in one blow are a 5 in damage, threats capable of perfect attacks are a 5 in attack, and so forth. It's useful for guaging the threats presented by the creatures in the antagonists. Extras are usually a 1 accross the board, with heroic mortals rising to a 2 or even a 3 in some places.

...
...
...and?
Nothing else? No way to decide what can be beaten, at what price, at what "level" (say between X and Y XPs)? Nothing that tells me, like, "place a threat 5 in everything and expect it to be killed by your Circle but with at least a pair of deaths, place 4 of them and watch them die"? Something?


As for challenge apropriate encounters, there are no such thing in Exalted. There are dramatically appropriate encounters. The characters get XP regardless of what goes on in a session, so you can pit them against a bandit horde or against a Second Circle Demon, so long as it serves the appropriate purpose in the story.

So... there are no rules to determinate wheather an encounter is good for the rules, and instead you have... a DM? Sorry, ST. 'Cause that's what a "drammatically appropriate encounter" is: something that was chosen by the ST because it was what he needed for the story. Which is what any DM/ST/whatever does for EVERY SINGLE ENCOUNTER IN EVERY GAME.


In a way that's true and in a way it's not. In Combat, the characters who specced entirely for combat are going to dominate. There's just no way to beat an Exalt in his specialty without specializing there as well. But that doesn't make the rest of the Circle useless. They can still threaten the main enemy, although not as much as the Dawn Caste or the Twilight Caste twink, and they can certainly deal with the secondary enemies to keep them off the main combatants. They can do things to turn the battle to their friends advantage, coordinate attacks, use the enviroment, and a wide mess of other options.

Weeell... in a system where environment is pretty much ignored by stunts (I mean, an EXAMPLE on the book says explicitly that Exalts can jump from pike to pike over a legion of soldiers... in another post in this thread they mentioned people fighting dancing between the shards of a broken tower falling...), and since clearing the mooks is not exactly exciting... it leaves the coordinate attack. Which, if I remember correctly, was introduced in the book by a paragraph that explained how the pityful DBs could damage a Solar thanks to the advantage granted by this manoeuvre... good, now I play a Solar that feels like a Dragon Blooded...


Wait, what? "It means that even if two characters are the exact opposite on character spectrum they are equally useful in a certain situation." You mean that if I specialize in combat and he specializes in baking pies, we should both be equally useful in a combat situation? That makes little sense.

It makes A LOT of sense in my book. You specialize in combat, you are useful in combat AND IN BAKING PIES (metaphor for everything else...). You specialize in baking, you are useful in combat. That doesn't mean that a character which is specced in combat is equally POWERFUL in combat as one which didn't. He's equally useful.
It's not impossible. Say, again, 4E does that. It's not perfect balance, but it's balance nonetheless. In combat each and every character feels useful as they each have different things to do, bu the wimpsy diplomat doesn't strike as hard/isn't as tough as/doesn't kill as many people as/doesn't cure as much as a character that is specced in combat. He's still very useful.
And differences between him and the fighter in Diplomacy will be... 16 points at level 1, if he's really specced in Diplomacy and the other has a -1 modifier. It grows to 26 at level 30. And still the fighter can contribute to a skill challange in meaningful ways.


The rest does, and that's somewhat what Exalted tries to go for. A Solar specced in combat has his place in a social situation, if only to force the other guy to not ignore the threat of violence posed by his Zenith Circlemate, but usually more. He brings something to the table at every situation by the fact that he is Exalted. Two Dawn Castes, one specced in Melee and the other in Martial Arts, are roughly as effective as each other in combat.

Huh? And that's contributing? Being alone and silent and "being there" leaving the talking to the diplomat is "contributing"? Believe me, I had a diplomatic campaign and for what I know NOBODY wants to listen the DM talking with another person at the table for hours while all you can do is sit there and listen.


I already covered this, but I'll reiterate: A Solar caught outside of his specialty will have difficulty, but he is not screwed. The Dawn Caste probably has a dot or two in Presence for inspiring troops, he's got a few dots in Charisma, and he's always got stunt dice. He can throw a Social attack capable of threatening everyone. Oh, he won't show up the Eclipse who specced for it, but he is not helpless.

So... a character who specced for something has a dice pool of, say, 15 about it, with charms and all. Maybe more. A character who didn't can be expected to have (but not always has) a dice pool of 5-6 dice in similar abilities. So, if a character with a dice pool of 6 (3 successes on average) with a stunt of 2 (one extra success) can be expected to overcome social situations in which you can place your characters... a character with a dice pool three times as big and even no stunt should manage it without even trying! And that's an "important roll"? One you cannot fail if you're not REALLY unlucky?


The system is set up so that everyone has their "turf," their place to shine. A Dawn Caste claims the battlefield, the Twilight the library and the ritual circle, and the Eclipse Caste the king's court.
This, of course, looks at only what a single Exalt can do compared to another. What you should look at is what they can do together. A group of Exalts trying to defend a fortress from an invading army? The socialite in the group pulls some strings and gets the combat monkeys command positions in the defenders so they can meet the enemy head on, while the stealth expert might slip out to assassinate the enemy generals and sabotage supply lines. Togther, their talents are multiplicative, not just additive.

Just as every other party in the world. Except that here there is no cooperation, instead there's a lot of little "solo" adventures. Take YOUR example, for instance. You have the socialite that does something alone, the combat monkeys that do something alone, the stealth expert that does something alone, and so on. They act as a party in that they all go towards the same goal. They do not act as a party in that they cooperate to reach the same goal. Each of them contributes in different and exclusive ways that the others cannot possibly use (if the threat is meaningful).


Actually, a Reaper Daiklave is 1 dot cheaper and has several places where it beats the Grand Daiklave. A Reaper is faster at attacking, more accurate, costs less to attune, and is better on defense. It's made for a different style of fighting than the Grand Daiklave.
The Grand hits like a ton of bricks. One hit from it and you are either dead or crippled. The Reaper, however, won't kill you with one hit, but it will hit you much more often, chipping away at the enemies combat effectiveness until the decicive strike.
Charms are the same way. Sure, Archery doesn't carry the same brutal level of power that Melee does, but niether can Melee match Archery's range. A Solar archer can pick off a target half a mile away if they feel like it.

Well... I had a couple fights with four characters in Exalted (we were new to the game, all of us, but...).
The characters were a Solar that fought with a reaper daiklave, a Dragon Blooded that fought with a Grand Daiklave, a Lunar that fought with a Great Maul (Goremaul?) and a Sidereal that fought with two guns and martial arts. Yeah, didn't know anything about the system, thought the "races" were balanced through giving more points to them. Fairly strange party. Everyone specced for combat because it was a test and I told them to (it was planned to last 1 or 2 sessions, and get them acclimatted to the system).

Well, the Solar sucked. He had the Peony Blossom line, with grat accuracy and a combo that involved many combat charms. At the first fight he killed a zombie in two attacks, while the Lunar was using the maul at full Rate for massive destruction (one strike = one dead undead), the Sidereal ended the combat with a spell, the Dragon Bloooded used his Daiklave to hit the zombies and managed to kill some, as the Solar did.
The second combat was against a Solar (sort of, I used Solar stats anyway). The Sidereal shot, what, 4 or 5 piercing fire balls in his chest for a total of 40 or so raw damages (10 each, IIRC). Up to that point, the Solar hit his rather high DV for 2 damages once with his great combo, and the Dragon Blooded had attacked him normally for 4 damages.

So much for balance...

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Yes and No. While you generally fight other exalted, and you could just buy all the Manuals of Exalted Power (that is, the books for Dragonbloods, Lunars, Sidereals and Abyssals) the best option is to buy the ST Companion first. It contains simplified rules for all kinds of exalts, so you can use them as foes, but not play them.

But you can't fight things like monsters or super-animals. All your foes are sentient, right?

[Lochar]

You can fight Wyld-warped animals and whatnot, but they're most likely going to be a difficulty slightly less than an Exalted enemy.

[Artanis]

But you can't fight things like monsters or super-animals. All your foes are sentient, right?
Don't worry, there are plenty of monsters and super-animals. And First Age murder-bots that are still around, for that matter. It's just that there's so much interesting stuff - and such a huge variety of stuff - you can do with the sentients in Exalted that the ST doesn't really need such monsters to keep things from getting stale :smallwink:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I see. So it's kind of like those anime you see sometimes. Guys beating each other up with crazy powers and stuff. Not that I think that's what Exalted is ALL about, but it definately seems to have that kind of feel in terms of combat.

[Rockbird]

Well... It's that, or giant dinosaurs. Everybody loves giant dinosaurs.

[Jerthanis]

I see. So it's kind of like those anime you see sometimes. Guys beating each other up with crazy powers and stuff. Not that I think that's what Exalted is ALL about, but it definately seems to have that kind of feel in terms of combat.

Yeah, for the most part when you're fighting "monsters" and not superpowered dudes or mooks, you're fighting stuff like Godzilla or Cthulu, not Goblins or Umber Hulks. (Although Goblins are a type of Mook that fights under the command of Fae, who are a low-tier threat, good for Dragonbloods or low power Solars, usually with a numerical advantage)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb! That's the Exalted way!:smallcool:

[Artanis]

Precisely :smallbiggrin:

[Aquillion]

What? You mean an intelligent enemy (most enemies ARE intelligent, the mooks are just mooks and deserve to be killed) wouldn't rather take down the guy who can get a whole army down his tail and manage to get the Realm after him with a letter when he can? It's easy, it's cost is almost nothing -apart from an action- and it wouldn't do that? I know, he loses a turn to the combat monkey. What if he then tries to escape? He kills 3/5 of the Circle then flies. They cannot be resurrected, the Circle now can be attacked easily on a social basis.
Well, the thing is, it should cost more than one action. No matter what your build is, you should have at least one perfect defense, at least one way of negating surprise, and Ox Body Technique at least once; the rules flat-out say the last one.

If an Exalted is getting killed in one action by something that doesn't massively overpower the entire group, then they're Doing It Wrong.


Well, the Solar sucked. He had the Peony Blossom line, with grat accuracy and a combo that involved many combat charms. At the first fight he killed a zombie in two attacks, while the Lunar was using the maul at full Rate for massive destruction (one strike = one dead undead), the Sidereal ended the combat with a spell, the Dragon Bloooded used his Daiklave to hit the zombies and managed to kill some, as the Solar did.It sounds like you gave the other people too many points. Remember, one of the biggest advantages a Solar has is that they advance faster than everyone else -- and the other types of Exalt have other bonuses that are already intended to balance out the Solar's advantages a bit so they can play together (at least to an extent. Lunars, Sidereals, and Abyssals will always find things to do, and all have unique advantages that are hard or impossible for the others to gain. Dragon-Bloods will start to lag behind and don't have as valuable unique abilities to make up for it, though.)

I'm confused when you say the Sidereal ended combat with a spell, though. Combat spellcasting in Exalted is, intentionally, almost impossible to pull off, because it leaves you unable to use a charm for the multiple actions it takes to shape and cast the spell you're using -- basically, a sitting duck, since that means that anyone and everyone on the battlefield can unload everything they've got at you with no concern for your perfects (and they will, if they've got any self-preservation instinct.)

[Jeivar]

So, I'm gradually making my way through the Exalted 2nd edition Corebook, and I've come across the whole Limit Break thing. What I haven't come across is some way to shed the Limit Break points, other than to fill out the meter and eventually suffer one, and then start back at square one.

Is there some way to prevent the LB points from building up, or are Solar characters inevitably going to suffer periodic maniacal episodes no matter what you do?

[JerryMcJerrison]

Yep, Limit is pretty much unstoppable. It helps players stick to their Virtue choices. Sure, having Valor 5 can be very useful, but you've got to fight a LOT more or suffer limit pretty often.

[Kyeudo]

@Mormegil



Ok, but from my perspective, MOST if not all of the times the enmies should aim at the weak spots of the Circle, not at the strong ones. I kill the socialites in an ambush, then get the Wyld Hunt on the rest until they die thanks to my social abilities. That would be the "intelligent" point of view.


Except that the socialites aren't a weak spot. They have strong enough defenses to take whatever is getting dished out. While he's trying to take them down, the combat monkey wails on him until he sees reason.



Ok, so, I do not give them gear or money when they deserve a prize for what they have done. What do I give them then? What can I give a Solar that is meaningful and increases his power to shape the world as he likes, what can I make them loot in a certain sense? Allies? Rules about that?


I was saying that giving your players a million dollars and a truck load of Daiklaves won't break your game. You'd have to be handing out uber stuff, like 4 and 5 dot Artifacts, left and right for that to happen.

Allies work too, just so long as you remember that Allies have lives of their own and the relationship goes two ways, so the more powerful the Ally is compared to you, the more you do stuff for him instead of the other way around.



So, if I understand it right, I don't use dice when they are totally worthless, like, say, jumping on a chair [duh]... but I eyeball the difficulty when they are meaningful, and make my PCs waste resources on a totally arbitrary and improvised difficulty, so that my already difficult to calibrate encounters now are even more... difficult to calibrate? Wow.
And that doesn't answer to the problem of time expenditure: I think that most of the things an Exalt does are important enough to need dice to be determined, maily because I wouldn't be narrating them otherwise.


Low difficulty tasks are not a waste of resources. Most characters can do difficult 1 and 2 tasks without even stunting. Almost everyone can do a difficulty 3 task with luck or a stunt.

Only high difficulty tasks, like surfing a river of lava on a shard of rock or outrunning a herd of stampeding triceratops, are going to need to be boosted by Essence.



Huh? And I thought Exalted was about being awesome and epic. What gives you the feel of epicness, being able to single-handedly defeat most things or being able to survive an epic fight?


Exalted is not D&D. In D&D, a fight was hard because it almost killed you. You then use healing spells to juice back up to full health and crash on to the next fight.

In Exalted, wounds take days to heal, even for Exalts. Oh, a deeply Medicine specced Solar can use a high cost combo and get you back on your feet from the brink of death, but then his Essence pool is gone.

A tough fight in Exalted is one that forces you to fight conservatively. Your attacks have trouble touching the opponent meaningfully, but you dare not use your Charm for the turn to boost your offense because you can't let him hit you. You push yourself to stunt harder, because that's all the assistance you can afford to give your attacks and all that keeps your defenses powered. You have to wear him down, watching for him to make a mistake and give you the opening you need to strike, guarding against mistakes for the exact same reason. In the end, the guy who pulls off the most awesome string of stunts wins, and probably has hardly a scratch on him.



No, I'm not. I'm in the same boat as 3.5 D&D (which I abandoned for some reasons) but not 4E. Now, don't take this as critical as it sounds. I'm just saying my problems with the system, and trying to see if there's a way out of it (mainly because I love stunts :smallsmile:)


In 4th Ed, you have "Here's the base stats for mosters of every level by role. Make minor tweaks to stats and homebrew some powers or gank them from existing monsters/classes. Enjoy." Monsters come out nearly identical in combat ability and threat. It isn't mechanically interesting, no matter the fluff you layer on top. It's balanced, yes, but uninteresting.

As always, to get something more than just another clone, you have to do the hardwork yourself. That's the difference between "epic encounters" and "two guys with pointy sticks."



...
...
...and?
Nothing else? No way to decide what can be beaten, at what price, at what "level" (say between X and Y XPs)? Nothing that tells me, like, "place a threat 5 in everything and expect it to be killed by your Circle but with at least a pair of deaths, place 4 of them and watch them die"? Something?


What's can be beaten? Everything, if you are willing to take the appropriate risks.

The players are the ones who should be in control of when and with who most encounters take place. They should have a goal they are pursuing and a reason for choosing combat over other possible methods. It doesn't have to be a complicated reason. "Bandits are a pain in the rear, so I leave them dead when I find them" certainly works. Whether combat takes place should never be a matter of "Oh crap, it's a dragon and we're level 2! Run away!" or "It's a dragon, but we're level 10. We can take him."



So... there are no rules to determinate wheather an encounter is good for the rules, and instead you have... a DM? Sorry, ST. 'Cause that's what a "drammatically appropriate encounter" is: something that was chosen by the ST because it was what he needed for the story. Which is what any DM/ST/whatever does for EVERY SINGLE ENCOUNTER IN EVERY GAME.


In D&D, you have to tailor the encounters to the group's level, making the story into a gradual incline from "I'm scared of kobolds" to "I smash demon lords in the face." You can't step back down the scale, though, because after a point kobolds can't touch your characters so they are boring, and you also can't jump up the scale, because Orcus will squash the guy with a chain shirt and a pointy stick.

In Exalted, you can start with a battle with Second Circle Demons, then deal with a town's bandit troubles, without anyone getting killed or getting bored, since you need to aproach both in different ways.



Weeell... in a system where environment is pretty much ignored by stunts (I mean, an EXAMPLE on the book says explicitly that Exalts can jump from pike to pike over a legion of soldiers... in another post in this thread they mentioned people fighting dancing between the shards of a broken tower falling...), and since clearing the mooks is not exactly exciting... it leaves the coordinate attack. Which, if I remember correctly, was introduced in the book by a paragraph that explained how the pityful DBs could damage a Solar thanks to the advantage granted by this manoeuvre... good, now I play a Solar that feels like a Dragon Blooded...


The "jumping from pike to pike" explicitly stated that you needed to stunt that (which means describing it differently in EVERY round and would require constant successful rolls to pull off) or use Charms. Stunts do not invalidate the enviroment, they use it.

Coordinating attacks is a powerful technique. It stacks on massive penalties, but only if you have the manpower and can afford the action to coordinate the attack, an action that is precious for whover is dealing with the main dangers of the encounter.

Also, don't knock Dragon-Blooded too much. They may have weaker Charms, but they can be a terror if used correctly. Free reflexives help alot with the right Charms.



It makes A LOT of sense in my book. You specialize in combat, you are useful in combat AND IN BAKING PIES (metaphor for everything else...). You specialize in baking, you are useful in combat. That doesn't mean that a character which is specced in combat is equally POWERFUL in combat as one which didn't. He's equally useful.
It's not impossible. Say, again, 4E does that. It's not perfect balance, but it's balance nonetheless. In combat each and every character feels useful as they each have different things to do, bu the wimpsy diplomat doesn't strike as hard/isn't as tough as/doesn't kill as many people as/doesn't cure as much as a character that is specced in combat. He's still very useful.
And differences between him and the fighter in Diplomacy will be... 16 points at level 1, if he's really specced in Diplomacy and the other has a -1 modifier. It grows to 26 at level 30. And still the fighter can contribute to a skill challange in meaningful ways.


I have a diplomat in my game with just as high a kill count as all but one of the combat specced fighters. Tell me she doesn't contribute.

Exalts can contribute in anything if they want to. They just arn't going to dominate the field away from their specialty. It takes a situation carefully tailored to invalidate every option that an Exalt has to make them useless.



Huh? And that's contributing? Being alone and silent and "being there" leaving the talking to the diplomat is "contributing"? Believe me, I had a diplomatic campaign and for what I know NOBODY wants to listen the DM talking with another person at the table for hours while all you can do is sit there and listen.


That was an "if only" there. That means that if all he chooses to do is stand by and watch, he still contributes JUST BY BEING THERE! If he chooses to take an active role in the situation, he can do more.



So... a character who specced for something has a dice pool of, say, 15 about it, with charms and all. Maybe more. A character who didn't can be expected to have (but not always has) a dice pool of 5-6 dice in similar abilities. So, if a character with a dice pool of 6 (3 successes on average) with a stunt of 2 (one extra success) can be expected to overcome social situations in which you can place your characters... a character with a dice pool three times as big and even no stunt should manage it without even trying! And that's an "important roll"? One you cannot fail if you're not REALLY unlucky?


Social situations are not a single "important roll." Social combat may have flaws, but that is not one of them. The Dawn Caste, with his die pool of 6 dice, poses a minor direct threat to the main opponent, since he'd need alot of luck to land an argument, but the main opponent now has two targets to worry about. He can't go all out on the Zenith Caste without exposing himself to the Dawn's social attacks. The Dawn can also try and coordinate arguments with the rest of the circle, or look for other tactics. He will find them if he wants to find them.



Just as every other party in the world. Except that here there is no cooperation, instead there's a lot of little "solo" adventures. Take YOUR example, for instance. You have the socialite that does something alone, the combat monkeys that do something alone, the stealth expert that does something alone, and so on. They act as a party in that they all go towards the same goal. They do not act as a party in that they cooperate to reach the same goal. Each of them contributes in different and exclusive ways that the others cannot possibly use (if the threat is meaningful).


What do you want? Them to hold each others hands? If they needed that, they would never have Exalted to begin with.

This isn't D&D, where you throw buff spells on your allies left and right and cast heals whenever anybody takes a wound. You don't organize party formations for maximum flanking and oppourtunity attacks. You go like action movie heroes, setting each other up for the next cool stunt, letting each member handle the situations that his strengths are best suited for, pooling resources to get the job done.



Well... I had a couple fights with four characters in Exalted (we were new to the game, all of us, but...).
The characters were a Solar that fought with a reaper daiklave, a Dragon Blooded that fought with a Grand Daiklave, a Lunar that fought with a Great Maul (Goremaul?) and a Sidereal that fought with two guns and martial arts. Yeah, didn't know anything about the system, thought the "races" were balanced through giving more points to them. Fairly strange party. Everyone specced for combat because it was a test and I told them to (it was planned to last 1 or 2 sessions, and get them acclimatted to the system).

Well, the Solar sucked. He had the Peony Blossom line, with grat accuracy and a combo that involved many combat charms. At the first fight he killed a zombie in two attacks, while the Lunar was using the maul at full Rate for massive destruction (one strike = one dead undead), the Sidereal ended the combat with a spell, the Dragon Bloooded used his Daiklave to hit the zombies and managed to kill some, as the Solar did.
The second combat was against a Solar (sort of, I used Solar stats anyway). The Sidereal shot, what, 4 or 5 piercing fire balls in his chest for a total of 40 or so raw damages (10 each, IIRC). Up to that point, the Solar hit his rather high DV for 2 damages once with his great combo, and the Dragon Blooded had attacked him normally for 4 damages.

So much for balance...

So, a broad spectrum of Exalts all fighting mooks, followed by fighting a single Celestial Exalt.

First problem, as has been pointed out, is that if you let someone get off Sorcery in combat, you are automatically running the opponents stupid. For zombies, not a problem. For an Exalt, that is unforgivable.

Second problem, is you are trying to compare across different Exalt types. Solars are balanced against Solars, not Dragon-Blooded.

Third, how did a combat specced Solar with an artifact weapon take two hits to kill a single zombie extra? The zombie has a DV of like 2, barely any soak, and only 3 health levels. The Solar should be rolling 17 dice on a normal attack if he's actually combat specced, so he should expect an average raw damage of 11 dice plus his Strength.

Fourth, full rate for a Grand Goremaul is 1. One attack per round unless you use magic. Yes, it kills if it hits, but you only get one shot at a time.

Fifth, Combos are not game winning end-alls. You can roll poorly, especially if you don't include the Second Excellency, and getting damage through a good soak score is tough.

Sixth, 4 health levels is a LOT of damage. That's half a heroic mortals health levels in one shot, or a single purchase of Lunar Ox-Body Technique.

Seventh, how was the Sidereal launching 5-6 shots out of any flame weapon? Flame weapons have rates 1 and lower, even the artifact versions, and I don't remember the Sidereals having an Extra Action Charm that strong outside of Sidereal Martial Arts.




So, I'm gradually making my way through the Exalted 2nd edition Corebook, and I've come across the whole Limit Break thing. What I haven't come across is some way to shed the Limit Break points, other than to fill out the meter and eventually suffer one, and then start back at square one.

Is there some way to prevent the LB points from building up, or are Solar characters inevitably going to suffer periodic maniacal episodes no matter what you do?

There is no way to stop Limit from building up. That's why it's a curse. Every Exalt except Abyssals (and maybe Infernals) are doomed to periodic Limit Breaks.

The best way around it is to play true to your character's Virtues. I have a character with high Valor and Conviction. Convincing him to give up or back down is nigh impossible. He gets into a lot of trouble that way, but he racks up no Limit.

[Kantolin]

Personally, most exalted games I've been in deal with limit breaks in one of two ways. Either you more or less ignore them, or you make them central to plot.

Limit breaks are basically a direct function of the Primordial Curse, so a story focused around breaking said curse tends to focus on limit breaking a lot more as a function of that.

And, a bit late, a comment on exalted being dark: I think a more accurate term is that it doesn't /have/ to be unless you like it that way. A few of my friends prefer a more world of darkness feel - the idea that you're constantly being hemmed in and the world is miserable, and you can do that in exalted.

It's more of a pseudo-standard, though, to have the new Solars or existant Dragon Blooded be the heroes standing against the tide. Dragon blooded in particular tend to have the realm at their back - and it's pseudo-typical that they focus on outward threats. If done that way, the world becomes about typical for fantasy tropes - there are powerful evil monsters, and the goal is for the hero to help people.

So meh. I guess I could see why it'd seem grimdark to read about, but it's really not that bad in general. The back of the (2ed) book, in fact, gives an extended set of suggestions as to themes that exist in the game - and on these very boards, they attempted to have a very intentionally silly game making creation basically a college.

[Tengu_temp]

The best way around it is to play true to your character's Virtues. I have a character with high Valor and Conviction. Convincing him to give up or back down is nigh impossible. He gets into a lot of trouble that way, but he racks up no Limit.

Very true - the only way to accumulate Limit is to have things that your character regrets happen. And heroism is all about not letting such things happen!

Unless you like angsty stories.

Also, I'd like to point out that the most popular Limit Breaks - Red Rage of Compassion, Heart of Flint, Foolhardy Contempt - are also the least limiting (oh ho ho, what a brilliant wordplay). Temperance Limit Breaks, on the other hand, tend to be most hilarious. One of them turns you into a superpowered Brainy the Smurf.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

What are these Limit Breaks. I get the impression they aren't super-powered attacks, a la Final Fantasy, so could the Exalted gurus here please enlighten me?

[Justyn]

What are these Limit Breaks. I get the impression they aren't super-powered attacks, a la Final Fantasy, so could the Exalted gurus here please enlighten me?

Despite sharing a name with the super attacks from the Final Fantasy series (which, I believe would be best replicated as three-die stunts and/or combos), Limit Break in Exalted is a curse placed upon the Exalted by the Primordials; and this is not a "cursed with awesome (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CursedWithAwesome)" curse, it's a curse curse. You can read about it in page 103 in the 2e rulebook, the heading is "The Great Curse", the book is not being very subtle here.

Edit: To quote TVTropes: "Subverted in the tabletop roleplaying game Exalted, which, as far as this troper knows, is the only occasion in which Limit Break is a bad thing - if your character accrues enough points of 'Limit', they suffer a Limit Break, in which a pre-selected and hugely crippling personality disorder kicks in and dictates or influences their actions for a time. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LimitBreak)"

[Innis Cabal]

They are a Curse created by the dying Primordials in an attempt to kill the Exalted. It didn't fully work, and instead tainted Exaltation of those present.

The Limit Break is a sort of...punishment for going against your Virtues. Depending on which of your Virtues is the highest depends on what happens when you hit your Limit break.

[Kyeudo]

What are these Limit Breaks. I get the impression they aren't super-powered attacks, a la Final Fantasy, so could the Exalted gurus here please enlighten me?

An Exalt's Limit Break is essentially temporary madness. Each type of Exalt has a different style of Limit Break, but all draw from that Exalt's greatest Virtue.

Solars either become paragons of their chosen Virtue or else fail in that Virtue entirely, becoming callous, faithless, cowards, or decadent. Their Limit Breaks have a trigger condition that always gains them Limit and their Limit Breaks last the longest.

Lunars become ruled by their animal sides, giving in to instinct. They gain Limit from the light of the full moon.

Sidereals become full of themselves, orchastrating massive plans of great scope just because they can. Their Limit Breaks are worsened by meeting in great numbers, such as when they cast the fortune of the First Age and decided the Solars had to go.

Dragon-Blooded become ruled by their elemental nature, expressing itself through their best Virtue. Their Limit Breaks are fairly short and they have no special trigger condition, so they don't Limit Break as often.

[Jeivar]

Very true - the only way to accumulate Limit is to have things that your character regrets happen. And heroism is all about not letting such things happen!

Ahh, I see. I got the impression that, say, a compassionate Solar accrued LB points merely by WITNESSING cruelty, whether they did something about it or not.
Well, that's a relief. :smallsmile:

[Aquillion]

There is no way to stop Limit from building up. That's why it's a curse. Every Exalt except Abyssals (and maybe Infernals) are doomed to periodic Limit Breaks.And Alchemicals!

Alchemicals accumulate 'Clarity' instead of Limit, and unlike Limit Clarity isn't entirely bad (they need a certain Clarity level to use some of their spell-equivalents, say.) Instead of making them go crazy, Clarity makes them behave more and more coldly logical for each point they accumulate -- it doesn't "max out and explode" the way Limit does, it just builds up and changes your behavior more and more.

It doesn't even make them abandon their virtues or motivations -- the example given is that, for instance, an Alchemical committed to helping people with medicine won't suddenly decide that helping people is illogical. They'll continue to follow their old goals, but they'll do it in a very logic-head manner -- coldly deciding when a patient is definitely beyond help and immediately euthanizing them so they can move on to someone who can be saved, say.

It's not a problem if you're faced with a situation that calls for cool levelheaded analysis. It is a problem if you need to interact with humans to any great extent.

Of course, that was in 1e. I don't think there's an Alchemical book out yet... and to my knowledge there's never been an Infernal book out, in any edition...

Oh, in most games Alchemicals don't show up much, incidentally. They basically live in another dimension inside of the unconscious and dying body of Autochthon (actually, there's a whole civilization in there, in a really weird endless-machine environment.) There's various scenarios for invasions and interactions, but I don't think very many people like them... but Autochthonia is still an interesting place to visit, especially since (as one of the few friendly + surviving Primordials and the designer of the Exalted) Autochthon himself is basically the grant high plot device who can do almost anything for you if you can wake him up, save his life, and convince him to help. Well, and figure out how to communicate with him in the first place, and find your way there in the first place... but if it was easy, it wouldn't be heroic.

[Tengu_temp]

Ahh, I see. I got the impression that, say, a compassionate Solar accrued LB points merely by WITNESSING cruelty, whether they did something about it or not.
Well, that's a relief. :smallsmile:

Indeed - if you have high Compassion, you gain Limit Break if you witness cruelty and don't do anything to stop it.
While we're on this topic, if your ST insists that a high Compassion character should be a pacifist, show him how untrue that is by punching him. Such a character probably won't like violence, but he won't hesitate to beat up, or even kill if he has to, the bad guys in order to protect innocents.



Oh, in most games Alchemicals don't show up much, incidentally.

I hope that'll change when their 2e book is out.

[BobVosh]

Indeed - if you have high Compassion, you gain Limit Break if you witness cruelty and don't do anything to stop it.
While we're on this topic, if your ST insists that a high Compassion character should be a pacifist, show him how untrue that is by punching him. Such a character probably won't like violence, but he won't hesitate to beat up, or even kill if he has to, the bad guys in order to protect innocents.

Actually after you punch him, ask "Should I not have punched you because I'm compassionate, or because I have temperance?"

As for alchemicals: They rarely show up because they are after a time delay, last book released, and some people really, really don't like em. Personally they are my favorite exalt.

[FatR]

You can fight Wyld-warped animals and whatnot, but they're most likely going to be a difficulty slightly less than an Exalted enemy.
More correctly, nearly all examples with actual statblocks are non-threats to any Exalt, unless its player either had no brain or deliberately made his character completely non-combative. They rarely can get past DV at all. The only things in the world that can threaten Exalted are other Exalted or beings with Exalted Charms. Well, spirits (if we forget about bull****, author-fiat abilties to rape the UFIO rule) can be dangerous to Terrestrials, and young Celestials, if the latter aren't entirely optimized for combat.

[Aquillion]

As for alchemicals: They rarely show up because they are after a time delay, last book released, and some people really, really don't like em. Personally they are my favorite exalt.Honestly... I love the idea of Alchemicals, and I love the idea of Autochthonia as it's presented in the 1e book. It's a great and creative setting.

Which is why I hate the Locust War scenario (and the other one, where Autochthon gets invaded by the First and Forsaken Lion or whatever.) IMHO Autochthonia and the Deathlords should never be mentioned in the same story, period, to the extent that that's possible -- it's just getting into too much "ninja pirate zombie robot" territory, throwing every single setting and background (ok, so that'd be if you added the Lintha and Chosen of Endings Assassins, too.) Autochthonia stands on its own. It doesn't need the FaFL stomping around, and turning it into some pointlessly convoluted five-way war between the Deathlords and the Realm and Autochthonia and Perfect of Paragon or whoever else they threw in is both silly and unnecessary. You're also drastically changing the South of Creation -- and, well, why? What's the point? That area of Creation has lots of interesting things in it that become redundant or massively-altered as soon as you drop Autochthonia there. There's just no reason to do that.

Autochthonia is a great place for a Circle to visit by one method or another when you want go someplace weird, and it's great to run Alchemical campaigns, maybe even having the Alchemicals visit creation (and try to see how weird it is to them.) But those should always just be loopholes in the Seal of the Eight Divinities, or ways around it -- I don't think it should ever get broken. Breaking the Seal of the Eight Divinities is like setting up this complicated, detailed setting, then smashing it to pieces for no good reason.

To their credit, I think the authors of the 1e book actually realized this when they stepped back and looked at what they'd written -- that's why the Locust War is specifically given only as one of three options, and why they have that really weird thing at the beginning about how the Autochthonians aren't really that overwhelming. I think that they'd originally intended it to be about the Locust War, and then (for once) someone actually went over what they'd written and said "Hey, wait, this scenario completely sucks."

Don't get me wrong, Autochthonia and the Alchemcials are awesome. That's why the whole concept of the Locust War is so teeth-grinding. Confrontations between the Deathlords (or Deathknights) and Creation, say, are interesting because there's a deep and meaningful connection between them. There's a dramatic weight to any story there, with the whole idea of the consequences for past actions and so forth...

But there's just no connection like that between them and Autochthonia, or between the Realm and Autochthonia. Those things shouldn't meet. Throwing a handful of Solars into Autochthonia or a handful of Alchemicals into Creation is interesting. Setting up some vast meaningless conflict between all of Autochthonia and the various big-ticket actors in Creation isn't.

[Kyeudo]

Ahh, I see. I got the impression that, say, a compassionate Solar accrued LB points merely by WITNESSING cruelty, whether they did something about it or not.
Well, that's a relief. :smallsmile:

Well, yeah, they can accumulate Limit like that, but that doesn't need to mean anything. My current Solar is impossible to tell if he's in Limit Break or not. His flaw is Foolhardy Contempt and he likes to charge head on anyway.

[Artanis]

Sidereals also don't Limit Break. They still have the Great Curse, but mechanically it's a roleplaying thing. Siddies have to worry about Paradox, which is the pattern spiders getting pissy about them screwing up fate too often, at which point they bite the Sidereal ('s strand on the Loom of Fate) to make his life suck for a while.

Solar (and Lunar) limit breaks are great for RP though. It's actually kinda fun to RP though a Demigod of Awesome finally having more than he can take and just snapping, going off and slaughtering every bad guy in the zip code...which then makes the compassionate solar snap and start sobbing and begging the first one to calm down...which makes at third solar snap and go, "screw this, I've had it with you guys, I'm gonna go get drunk for a month or two".

[Kyeudo]

Sidereals also don't Limit Break. They still have the Great Curse, but mechanically it's a roleplaying thing. Siddies have to worry about Paradox, which is the pattern spiders getting pissy about them screwing up fate too often, at which point they bite the Sidereal ('s strand on the Loom of Fate) to make his life suck for a while.


During 1st Edition, I think that was the case, but 2nd Edition has them with actual limit breaks, based on Caste, and all based on the idea of setting events in motion.

Off the top of my head:
Chosen of Mercury set the greatest journeys they can in motion.
Chosen of Venus cause the greatest pleasures they can.
Chosen of Mars cause the greatest conflicts they can contrive.
Chosen of Jupiter must use the greatest secrets they know.
Chosen of Saturn cause the greatest endings possible.

[Artanis]

Oh :smallfrown:

What happened to Paradox?

[Kyeudo]

Oh :smallfrown:

What happened to Paradox?

Still there. Still sucks hard to get hit with it. Sidereals are double screwed, but not half so much as Abyssals.

[The Mormegil]

Well, the thing is, it should cost more than one action. No matter what your build is, you should have at least one perfect defense, at least one way of negating surprise, and Ox Body Technique at least once; the rules flat-out say the last one.
If an Exalted is getting killed in one action by something that doesn't massively overpower the entire group, then they're Doing It Wrong.

Ok, that sounds good.


It sounds like you gave the other people too many points. Remember, one of the biggest advantages a Solar has is that they advance faster than everyone else -- and the other types of Exalt have other bonuses that are already intended to balance out the Solar's advantages a bit so they can play together (at least to an extent. Lunars, Sidereals, and Abyssals will always find things to do, and all have unique advantages that are hard or impossible for the others to gain. Dragon-Bloods will start to lag behind and don't have as valuable unique abilities to make up for it, though.)

No, I used rules as they were written.
What I meant was that they included in the rules more points (more freebuy points I think) for non-Solars. I thought it made up for that. It kinda did...


I'm confused when you say the Sidereal ended combat with a spell, though. Combat spellcasting in Exalted is, intentionally, almost impossible to pull off, because it leaves you unable to use a charm for the multiple actions it takes to shape and cast the spell you're using -- basically, a sitting duck, since that means that anyone and everyone on the battlefield can unload everything they've got at you with no concern for your perfects (and they will, if they've got any self-preservation instinct.)

Yep... but the zombie were away, he was hiding (like, 13 Stealth successes or so) in the nearby forest and took 2 rounds to use a basic combat spell (I remember butterflies...)


@Mormegil
Except that the socialites aren't a weak spot. They have strong enough defenses to take whatever is getting dished out. While he's trying to take them down, the combat monkey wails on him until he sees reason.


Call'em socialites, whatever.



I was saying that giving your players a million dollars and a truck load of Daiklaves won't break your game. You'd have to be handing out uber stuff, like 4 and 5 dot Artifacts, left and right for that to happen.

Allies work too, just so long as you remember that Allies have lives of their own and the relationship goes two ways, so the more powerful the Ally is compared to you, the more you do stuff for him instead of the other way around.

So... basically no loot whatsoever? That makes for a sad party... at least in my gaming group... I learned that in my first campaign, where they fought epic threats with a +1 sword, and two PCs were killed over a +3 one. No kidding.


Low difficulty tasks are not a waste of resources. Most characters can do difficult 1 and 2 tasks without even stunting. Almost everyone can do a difficulty 3 task with luck or a stunt.
Only high difficulty tasks, like surfing a river of lava on a shard of rock or outrunning a herd of stampeding triceratops, are going to need to be boosted by Essence.

And that proves my point. I'm not bothering with low-difficulty tasks.


Exalted is not D&D. In D&D, a fight was hard because it almost killed you. You then use healing spells to juice back up to full health and crash on to the next fight.
In Exalted, wounds take days to heal, even for Exalts. Oh, a deeply Medicine specced Solar can use a high cost combo and get you back on your feet from the brink of death, but then his Essence pool is gone.
A tough fight in Exalted is one that forces you to fight conservatively. Your attacks have trouble touching the opponent meaningfully, but you dare not use your Charm for the turn to boost your offense because you can't let him hit you. You push yourself to stunt harder, because that's all the assistance you can afford to give your attacks and all that keeps your defenses powered. You have to wear him down, watching for him to make a mistake and give you the opening you need to strike, guarding against mistakes for the exact same reason. In the end, the guy who pulls off the most awesome string of stunts wins, and probably has hardly a scratch on him.
In 4th Ed, you have "Here's the base stats for mosters of every level by role. Make minor tweaks to stats and homebrew some powers or gank them from existing monsters/classes. Enjoy." Monsters come out nearly identical in combat ability and threat. It isn't mechanically interesting, no matter the fluff you layer on top. It's balanced, yes, but uninteresting.
As always, to get something more than just another clone, you have to do the hardwork yourself. That's the difference between "epic encounters" and "two guys with pointy sticks."

...
...
...
You never really played 4e did you? Just as I never "really" played Exalted, I suppose. Anyway...


What's can be beaten? Everything, if you are willing to take the appropriate risks.
The players are the ones who should be in control of when and with who most encounters take place. They should have a goal they are pursuing and a reason for choosing combat over other possible methods. It doesn't have to be a complicated reason. "Bandits are a pain in the rear, so I leave them dead when I find them" certainly works. Whether combat takes place should never be a matter of "Oh crap, it's a dragon and we're level 2! Run away!" or "It's a dragon, but we're level 10. We can take him."
In D&D, you have to tailor the encounters to the group's level, making the story into a gradual incline from "I'm scared of kobolds" to "I smash demon lords in the face." You can't step back down the scale, though, because after a point kobolds can't touch your characters so they are boring, and you also can't jump up the scale, because Orcus will squash the guy with a chain shirt and a pointy stick.
In Exalted, you can start with a battle with Second Circle Demons, then deal with a town's bandit troubles, without anyone getting killed or getting bored, since you need to aproach both in different ways.

... Well... I guess I just don't like this. I like, to a certain extent, that I need weeks to recover from damages, that combat is lethal and all.
I just don't like not being able to "grow", not being able to "loot", not being able to "level up in power". One of the things I love playing is the sense of growth that leveling up gives. Maybe it's just that D&D is level-based and exalted is not, but... there ARE XPs... if you can beat everything just what are they worth for?


The "jumping from pike to pike" explicitly stated that you needed to stunt that (which means describing it differently in EVERY round and would require constant successful rolls to pull off) or use Charms. Stunts do not invalidate the enviroment, they use it.

Exactly. They use it: it doesn't have any impact on the game. There are pikes, so? They could be trees or towers or something and it would be almost the same (except for, you know, the name and maybe the epicness of the action).


Coordinating attacks is a powerful technique. It stacks on massive penalties, but only if you have the manpower and can afford the action to coordinate the attack, an action that is precious for whover is dealing with the main dangers of the encounter.

Weren't you saying that the only way to penetrate the (perfect) defenses of somebody was for him to make a mistake / you to stunt properly for long enough?


Also, don't knock Dragon-Blooded too much. They may have weaker Charms, but they can be a terror if used correctly. Free reflexives help alot with the right Charms.

Which he did not have, nor use. The player arrived late at the gaming session, so we made for him a character in three minutes, with the Charms taken all on the Melee line, and he didn't bother to read/use them because he's just like that.


What do you want? Them to hold each others hands? If they needed that, they would never have Exalted to begin with.

This isn't D&D, where you throw buff spells on your allies left and right and cast heals whenever anybody takes a wound. You don't organize party formations for maximum flanking and oppourtunity attacks. You go like action movie heroes, setting each other up for the next cool stunt, letting each member handle the situations that his strengths are best suited for, pooling resources to get the job done.

May I ask how exactly do you "set up the others for the next stunt"?


So, a broad spectrum of Exalts all fighting mooks, followed by fighting a single Celestial Exalt.

First problem, as has been pointed out, is that if you let someone get off Sorcery in combat, you are automatically running the opponents stupid. For zombies, not a problem. For an Exalt, that is unforgivable.

Didn't happen with the Exalt, and I answered about the zombies (not even zombies are THAT dumb...)


Second problem, is you are trying to compare across different Exalt types. Solars are balanced against Solars, not Dragon-Blooded.
Third, how did a combat specced Solar with an artifact weapon take two hits to kill a single zombie extra? The zombie has a DV of like 2, barely any soak, and only 3 health levels. The Solar should be rolling 17 dice on a normal attack if he's actually combat specced, so he should expect an average raw damage of 11 dice plus his Strength.

That's because that was MY first session also, and so I supposed they had the same HL of the others. Seven. Doesn't change my point...
And he was rolling 13 dice (4 Dex + 5 melee + accuracy... I think.)


Fourth, full rate for a Grand Goremaul is 1. One attack per round unless you use magic. Yes, it kills if it hits, but you only get one shot at a time.

Unless it is in orichalcum, I think, which gives rate +1 (IIRC).


Seventh, how was the Sidereal launching 5-6 shots out of any flame weapon? Flame weapons have rates 1 and lower, even the artifact versions, and I don't remember the Sidereals having an Extra Action Charm that strong outside of Sidereal Martial Arts.

I don't remember exactly how he did it, but I'm sure it was legal. And he WAS using Sidereal Martial Arts. There's one specifically for this.

[Kyeudo]

@Mormegil


So... basically no loot whatsoever? That makes for a sad party... at least in my gaming group... I learned that in my first campaign, where they fought epic threats with a +1 sword, and two PCs were killed over a +3 one. No kidding.


Are you paying attention? Yes, you can give out loot. I was saying that you don't need a table to tell you how much loot your players should have. They can have alot and the price they pay to have the loot will balance out the bonuses they give.

Go ahead and give your players that shiny Daiklave they want.



And that proves my point. I'm not bothering with low-difficulty tasks.


The point of low difficulty task is to further the feeling of Epicness. Ordinary people struggle to forge an exceptional sword, but you bust out a masterpiece in a couple of days. Ordinary thieves have trouble with the lock on the door, but you jimmy the lock with nothing more than a toothpick and a sharp tap.

Plus, they can be useful for slowing players down. If they don't snag the chamberlain's keys, they can find navigating the palace very time consuming, especially if they don't want to be discovered.



...
...
...
You never really played 4e did you? Just as I never "really" played Exalted, I suppose. Anyway...


I've dabbled a little in 4th edition. I found it a solid, well thought out system, if a little formulaic. I have the 4e DMG on my shelf of gaming books and I have to say it contains some of the most solid gaming advice I've seen.

That said, I still had to do alot of homebrew work to get my traps, monsters, and skill encounters set up the way I wanted them to run. Sadly, the game fell apart before I even ran a single actual session.



... Well... I guess I just don't like this. I like, to a certain extent, that I need weeks to recover from damages, that combat is lethal and all.


Actual, Exalts need days, and Solars and Lunars can speed that up considerably with Charms. Mortals need weeks.

Think of Exalted combat as something like a Star Wars lightsaber fight. Both combatants are extremely skilled, don't make many mistakes, and have multiple ways of keeping themselves from being hit, because the first one hit is going to go down hard.



I just don't like not being able to "grow", not being able to "loot", not being able to "level up in power". One of the things I love playing is the sense of growth that leveling up gives. Maybe it's just that D&D is level-based and exalted is not, but... there ARE XPs... if you can beat everything just what are they worth for?


Not being able to grow? If you put all of your Charms into a single ability, you might be able to get the last Charm in a single tree, but you will have barely scratched the surface of an Exalt's power.

XP gets funneled into new Charms, more Abilities, higher Attributes, Specialties, Essence, and Combos. You go from "D&D Epic" to "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Epic." An Essence 3 Solar can throw around statues. An Essence 6 Solar can swing swords made for 25 ft tall warmachines. An Essence 10 Solar can wrestle said warmachines to the ground barehanded!



Exactly. They use it: it doesn't have any impact on the game. There are pikes, so? They could be trees or towers or something and it would be almost the same (except for, you know, the name and maybe the epicness of the action).


Um, No. A stunt does not prevent the need for a roll. Sure, you can make a difficulty 3 check to balance on top of a spear half the time, but can you keep that up for ten actions of combat? twenty? Only Charms can make checks like that go away.

Tightrope walking over a lake of lava still takes the Dex+Athletics check and if you fall no stunt is going to make the lava burn any less hot.



Weren't you saying that the only way to penetrate the (perfect) defenses of somebody was for him to make a mistake / you to stunt properly for long enough?


Right. One of the mistakes to make is to use a Perfect Defense against every single attack. Some attacks just arn't likely to touch your DV or only need a little bump to get out of the way, so you use lesser defenses when you can to save Essence.

If you are taking a -3 or -5 penalty to your DV from a coordinated attack, you suddenly can't get by on the lesser Charms and have to invoke that Perfect against entire flurries of attacks. Kiss your mote pool good-bye and then your other defenses with it.



Which he did not have, nor use. The player arrived late at the gaming session, so we made for him a character in three minutes, with the Charms taken all on the Melee line, and he didn't bother to read/use them because he's just like that.


That's what you get for not understanding your character properly. Dragon-Blooded are some of the tougher-to-use Exalts.



May I ask how exactly do you "set up the others for the next stunt"?


Let's say that your Dawn Caste buddy is dueling a Dusk Caste Abyssal in a bar. As part of his last stunt, the Abyssal leaped up onto the table, and your buddy follows. Now, you know you can't get through the Abyssal's defenses often with your dice pool, so instead of attacking the Abyssal, you attack the table, cleaving the legs of it out from under your foe.

The direct result of your action is only going to be some minor inconvienience for the Abyssal, but your buddy now has something to build off of. He can surf down the tabletop at the now grounded Abyssal, stomp hard on the other edge and try to catapult the Dusk Caste, or something else entirely. The scene just got cooler and your buddy nabbed some better stunt dice.



And he was rolling 13 dice (4 Dex + 5 melee + accuracy... I think.)


Ah, I see. Not entirely twinked out for Melee. Still, his Strength should have been at least 2, yielding about 9 dice after soak, which will flatten any Extra.



Unless it is in orichalcum, I think, which gives rate +1 (IIRC).


What's a Lunar doing using an orichalcum Grand Goremaul? The attunement on that is stupidly expensive.



I don't remember exactly how he did it, but I'm sure it was legal. And he WAS using Sidereal Martial Arts. There's one specifically for this.

There's your problem right there. Sidereal Martial Arts are INCREDIBLY POWERFUL Charms. They blow most other printed Charms out of the water right off the bat. A Solar under Essence 5 is going to be hard pressed to find something as game-shatteringly powerful.

[Lochar]

@Mormegil:
It's double mote cost, plus a Wits+Lore roll at 3 difficulty to attune to an artifact of the wrong type.

So a Lunar with a Orchicalcum Grand Goremaul would require 16 commited motes of essence, plus a fairly difficult check if the Lunar is melee spec'd and doesn't have any Lore.

And 16 motes is nothing to sneeze at. That'll eat half or more of the essence of any beginning Exalt. And commited essence doesn't recover unless you un-attune from the weapon.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

So what is each limit break like? From what I've been told, one makes you cry, one makes you angry and one makes you binge. Are there any others?

[Kyeudo]

So what is each limit break like? From what I've been told, one makes you cry, one makes you angry and one makes you binge. Are there any others?

There are nine sample Limit Breaks for Solars. There's:
Heart of Tears, which makes you a helpless blubbering crybaby,
Red Rage of Compassion, which makes you try to kill oppressors,
Compassionate Martyrdom, which makes you try to help people as much as possible immediately with no thought for self,
Deliberate Cruelty, which makes you use terror and cruelty to get what you want,
Heart of Flint, which makes you emotionless,
Ascetic Drive, which makes you a super monk who withdraws from the world in search of purity,
Contempt of the Virtuous, which makes you force everyone around to forsake vice,
Overindulgence, which makes you a super hippy binging on everything you can find,
Berserk Anger, which makes you a rage driven killing machine,
and Foolhardy Contempt, which makes you hyper-overconfident.

Of course, you can create your own, such as Broken Courage, that makes you flee every battle like a coward.

Lunar limit breaks resemble Solar Limit Breaks, turned to a more animalistic theme. Dragon-Bloods have very variable Limit Breaks, while Sidereals have only five types and don't get to pick which one they get.

[JerryMcJerrison]

There's your problem right there. Sidereal Martial Arts are INCREDIBLY POWERFUL Charms. They blow most other printed Charms out of the water right off the bat. A Solar under Essence 5 is going to be hard pressed to find something as game-shatteringly powerful.


That's why I've never really liked SMA. Most other stuff has a fairly steady rate of improvement. Normal charms, TMA and CMA, even sorceries, if only because Solar Circle takes years to cast in combat time. Though I guess the Essence requirements keep them from being crazy right off the bat. Even then, though, you get charms that let you do crazy stuff like attack everything you attack everything you can see, even with magically improved sight, six times, as a simple action. Or poke someone in the eye so hard they cease to be.

[Kyeudo]

That's why I've never really liked SMA. Most other stuff has a fairly steady rate of improvement. Normal charms, TMA and CMA, even sorceries, if only because Solar Circle takes years to cast in combat time. Though I guess the Essence requirements keep them from being crazy right off the bat. Even then, though, you get charms that let you do crazy stuff like attack everything you attack everything you can see, even with magically improved sight, six times, as a simple action. Or poke someone in the eye so hard they cease to be.

Yeah, and that's the weaker Sidereal Styles.

I suppose they think it's balanced by the fact that it takes 200-300 years to master one of the Sidereal Styles and you need a tutor to learn them even for Sidereals.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

There are nine sample Limit Breaks for Solars. There's:
Heart of Tears, which makes you a helpless blubbering crybaby,
Red Rage of Compassion, which makes you try to kill oppressors,
Compassionate Martyrdom, which makes you try to help people as much as possible immediately with no thought for self,
Deliberate Cruelty, which makes you use terror and cruelty to get what you want,
Heart of Flint, which makes you emotionless,
Ascetic Drive, which makes you a super monk who withdraws from the world in search of purity,
Contempt of the Virtuous, which makes you force everyone around to forsake vice,
Overindulgence, which makes you a super hippy binging on everything you can find,
Berserk Anger, which makes you a rage driven killing machine,
and Foolhardy Contempt, which makes you hyper-overconfident.

Of course, you can create your own, such as Broken Courage, that makes you flee every battle like a coward.

Lunar limit breaks resemble Solar Limit Breaks, turned to a more animalistic theme. Dragon-Bloods have very variable Limit Breaks, while Sidereals have only five types and don't get to pick which one they get.

Gosh! This really lends itself to a soap opera plot!:smalltongue:

[Aquillion]

Yeah, and that's the weaker Sidereal Styles.

I suppose they think it's balanced by the fact that it takes 200-300 years to master one of the Sidereal Styles and you need a tutor to learn them even for Sidereals.To be fair, there just aren't that many high essence charms printed for anyone else... but when they do get printed, they're equally broken. Sure, your SMA activates that complicated, dazzling SMA attack against everyone on the Blessed Isle -- and then an experienced Solar Exalt yawns, activates Zeal (which doesn't even cost any essence; it just activates automatically when they channel willpower though their virtues), and automatically get successes equal to his Integrity on his roll to stab you in the face... and you're not allowed to defend or react at all, even with perfect defenses, because Zeal is just that stupid.

There have been a few really stupid things printed for Exalted... still, the worst are in the peripheral splats like Scroll of the Monk and Dawn of the First Age. Generally if you stick to the core book, the Exalt-type books, and the various setting books you'll be fine.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

So it's a munchkin's paradise?

[wadledo]

Actually, to look at Sidereals, the only good(and I use good in a figurative sense, because they're all technically awesome) charms are Martial Arts Charms.
They've got the most number of charms in the book, and the most out charm description space.

[Innis Cabal]

I find alot of the 1st ed Sidereal Charms to be completly awsome, even outside martial arts. Thr prayer strip Charms...whoa boy

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Sweet Yavanna it's like the temptation of the One Ring!

[Aquillion]

So it's a munchkin's paradise?It's a bit different, though, because in Exalted the players are supposed to be world-shattering. Indeed, as FatR was complaining about earlier, the real problem with all these uber-overpowered charms is not if the players get them; the problem is dealing with the logic of why NPCs don't use them. If NPCs use every single broken charm intelligently then the whole setting breaks apart.

Still, that's easy enough to avoid, IMHO. For the most part the broken charms should set off 'BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN' alarms in the head of anyone who reads them -- it doesn't take a genius or an experienced player to read Zeal or Mirror Does Not Lie and realize something is wrong with them. (Mirror Does Not Lie is a SMA technique that lets you automatically redirect any attack against you to target someone else as long as anyone at all can see the attack -- and it looks like the person who was attacking you attacked that target originally. And after the initial cost to activate it for a scene, it does all these redirections for free. Yes, really. Also, it works on Social attacks as well as physical ones.)

Also, most of these techniques require a higher essence than the players will ever get in a typical game.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

What about people for whom the BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN alarms don't go off unless someone tells them? I know nothing of character optimization and what kinds of abilities are game-breaking in any sort of game, much less one I've never seen before.

[Kyeudo]

What about people for whom the BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN alarms don't go off unless someone tells them? I know nothing of character optimization and what kinds of abilities are game-breaking in any sort of game, much less one I've never seen before.

Unless you buy Scroll of the Monk or Dreams of the First Age, you don't have to worry too much, and Scroll of the Monk's broken-level Charms are all contained in the Sidereal Martial Arts section. Besides, by the time you read Scroll of the Monk, you'll be able to see that Sidereal Martial Arts are majorly above even Solar level Charms, which can rearrange whole goverments in a matter of days.

The only other thing to watch out for really is Grand Daiklave wielding Twilight Soak Monkeys in Orihalcum Superheavy Plate.

[Tengu_temp]

The only other thing to watch out for really is Grand Daiklave wielding Twilight Soak Monkeys in Orihalcum Superheavy Plate.

Like Insar? Apart from the superheavy plate.

[Kyeudo]

Like Insar? Apart from the superheavy plate.

He wasn't a Soak Monkey. Besides, Twilights weren't as powerful in 1st Edition.

[Kantolin]

Honestly, I think the game would be kind of lame for an optimizer, as a broken exalted gets unfun fairly swiftly.

In my group, we just analyze things as they come in, with the unwritten rule that anything that turns out to be broken or near-broken can/will be rectified for the purpose of game, usually after some testing.

Since to be totally honest, that's one of the problems I do have with exalted: It is possible for it to become broken, and it does with occasional frequency unless you watch it. Especially if you have nonsensical ideas, like raising your defenses being particularly viable or like multiple forms of attack being the same in general power.

This especially happens when two people end up either doing the same thing, or when one person accidentally starts tromping on another's toes without realizing it at first.

But meh. It's usually easy to fix in most groups - frequently we have talks after game where multiple people suggest, "This seemed really broken, guys..." and it turns out they merely rolled well, or it was the situation, or sommat.

So personally, unless it's obviously insane, most things can be dealt with through mild trial and error, especially on the PC level.

[Kyeudo]

If you don't have to improvise something while playing Exalted, you are gaming with brain dead zombies.

[Aquillion]

What about people for whom the BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN alarms don't go off unless someone tells them? I know nothing of character optimization and what kinds of abilities are game-breaking in any sort of game, much less one I've never seen before.
Zeal literally says "If you use this, you succeed perfectly at anything, any attack or action, and nobody is allowed to defend or try to stop you by any means, period." This in a game where active defenses are a huge part of the mechanics. It isn't some deep, complicated combo or obscure application or implications that might not be obvious (like with many spells in D&D) -- you don't even have to know what the words mean in the context of Exalted to realize there's something seriously wrong with it.

[MeklorIlavator]

Zeal literally says "If you use this, you succeed perfectly at anything, any attack or action, and nobody is allowed to defend or try to stop you by any means, period." You don't even have to know what the words mean in the context of Exalted to realize there's something seriously wrong with it.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it has some serious prerequisites, but even so....:smalleek:! It's like they decided what their game really lacked was something like Pun-Pun.

[Aquillion]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it has some serious prerequisites, but even so....:smalleek:! It's like they decided what their game really lacked was something like Pun-Pun.Well, it's a top-tier charm, but it doesn't have any higher prerequisites than other top-tier charms from that book. It does require Essence 7, so in many games it will never come up (because you either need to be over a few hundred years in age, or use a few specific tricks to get your essence that high earlier.)

And speaking of Pun-Pun, there's an even worse charm in DotFA -- Power From Darkness lets you, basically, spend 1 xp to learn any charm in the game instantly, without a need for a tutor. Yes, it really is that horribly broken. It has a drawback, but in a way the drawback is even worse -- you gain a point of permanent limit, essentially, every time you use it (technically it reduces your maximum limit by one permanently, but it's the same thing.)

Why is that horrible? Because it's a drawback that, by the rules, you are not allowed to know about (the charm even says that Solars don't know this part), since you don't know about the Great Curse. If you use the charm ten times, you will go permanently insane, and even using it once will make you unstable, but there is no reason why your character wouldn't use it every time they want to learn a charm.

So broken.

[Kantolin]

Out of curiosity, which book is Zeal from?

[Aquillion]

Out of curiosity, which book is Zeal from?
Both Zeal and Power From Darkness are from Dreams of the First Age, a set of books about the world before the Usurpation. You can, of course, always decide that they've been lost forever and are no longer available (even from your memories of past incarnations), which is probably a good idea.

[FatR]

Zeal literally says "If you use this, you succeed perfectly at anything, any attack or action, and nobody is allowed to defend or try to stop you by any means, period." This in a game where active defenses are a huge part of the mechanics. It isn't some deep, complicated combo or obscure application or implications that might not be obvious (like with many spells in D&D) -- you don't even have to know what the words mean in the context of Exalted to realize there's something seriously wrong with it.
(Sigh.) If Charm authors would have managed to get in their stupid heads what UFIO (that stands by "unstoppable force, immovable object") rule from corebook actually means, I might have considered continuing to read their books. For those who don't know, the corebook explicitly states that whenever a Charm that is stated to own everything no matter what conflicts with a Charm that is stated to defend from anything, the latter Charm always wins. So, you see, from the standpoint of core mechanics you still can answer Zeal and god abilities, mentioned above in the thread with "I use Heavenly Guardian Defense, bitch!" Except authors of Zeal and other crap don't seem to realize that.

By the way, if you allow Zeal to work as its authors intended, it indeed becomes "I Win" button. Which leads to battles, decided by Join Battle roll.

[Jerthanis]

(Sigh.) If Charm authors would have managed to get in their stupid heads what UFIO (that stands by "unstoppable force, immovable object") rule from corebook actually means, I might have considered continuing to read their books. For those who don't know, the corebook explicitly states that whenever a Charm that is stated to own everything no matter what conflicts with a Charm that is stated to defend from anything, the latter Charm always wins. So, you see, from the standpoint of core mechanics you still can answer Zeal and god abilities, mentioned above in the thread with "I use Heavenly Guardian Defense, bitch!" Except authors of Zeal and other crap don't seem to realize that.

By the way, if you allow Zeal to work as its authors intended, it indeed becomes "I Win" button. Which leads to battles, decided by Join Battle roll.

Technically... Because Zeal's text says it works perfectly and cannot be defended against by anything... and Perfect Defenses tend to say they guard against anything, even things they can't guard against... you hit UFIO and the Perfect Defense wins, even though Zeal's text contradicts it. It's obviously not the intent of the written charm, but it's how the rules DO technically work. UFIO is a brilliant piece of game design because of this. It's like a perfect defense against bad game design. Zeal is worse than it seems though, because its indefensibility clause isn't as bad as making Integrity a stronger ability than literally every other ability.

So speaking of Exalted optimization: The thing you probably most have to watch out for is characters making PCs with rigorously optimized xp conservation devices. Because the cost of increasing a stat is a value multiplied by the current score in that stat, increasing lower dots is cheaper than high ones. Thus, if you wanted a 5 charisma, 4 manipulation and 5 appearance, the most efficient method would be to start with cha 5/man 1/app 5, as opposed to a more logical arrangement. Also: Spending bonus points only on things that are efficient, like Virtues, Willpower, and Abilities... although I consider that more of an efficient economic choice than the first one.

[Aquillion]

Technically... Because Zeal's text says it works perfectly and cannot be defended against by anything... and Perfect Defenses tend to say they guard against anything, even things they can't guard against... you hit UFIO and the Perfect Defense wins, even though Zeal's text contradicts it. It's obviously not the intent of the written charm, but it's how the rules DO technically work. UFIO is a brilliant piece of game design because of this. It's like a perfect defense against bad game design. Zeal is worse than it seems though, because its indefensibility clause isn't as bad as making Integrity a stronger ability than literally every other ability.That's debatable. While a Perfect Defense always wins when you activate it, there are still situations where you simply can't activate it (when you're inactive, when you're out of Essence or whatever it costs, etc.) Zeal, the argument goes, prevents you from ever even trying to activate any defenses, including perfects, by essentially skipping any steps in combat when you'd usually be given a chance to activate them; therefore UFIO never applies. Seven Shadows Evasion, say, doesn't say that you can always activate it (it just says it wins when you do manage to activate it), while essentially Zeal says you can't activate SSE (or any other defenses) -- therefore they don't conflict.

Of course, the whole way of thinking behind Zeal leads to images of techniques like this:

Eight Shadow Evasion
This is a double perfect dodge against any attack, even normally undodgable ones. Yes, this includes Zeal.

Followed by:

Zeal+
Your action becomes triple perfect. It cannot be defended against by any means, including Eight Shadow Evasion or, if that jerk writing the other book makes it, Nine Shadow Evasion.

Followed by Infinite Shadow Evasion, Infinity Plus One Zeal, etc. This leads to situations where whoever has the last item in the chain wins automatically, which is stupid (especially in a game like Exalted, where you're supposed to be able to have epic fights against stronger opponents.)

But either way Zeal is a horrible charm (as would any charm that tried to circumvent perfect defenses so directly, regardless of whether it's possible or not), so it's not like it's worth arguing about.


So speaking of Exalted optimization: The thing you probably most have to watch out for is characters making PCs with rigorously optimized xp conservation devices. Because the cost of increasing a stat is a value multiplied by the current score in that stat, increasing lower dots is cheaper than high ones. Thus, if you wanted a 5 charisma, 4 manipulation and 5 appearance, the most efficient method would be to start with cha 5/man 1/app 5, as opposed to a more logical arrangement. Also: Spending bonus points only on things that are efficient, like Virtues, Willpower, and Abilities... although I consider that more of an efficient economic choice than the first one.That always bugged me. Why don't they just give you XP to design your character (with a few other rules for things you wouldn't normally spend XP on, rules limiting how you can spend it, rules keeping you from carrying any over, etc)?

I suppose part of the reason is because they wanted to encourage people to specialize and focus on one or two big items, while XP encourages you to spread out a bit because hey, raising everything even slightly useful to 2 or 3 is cheap. But still, it's odd.

[The Mormegil]

@Mormegil
Are you paying attention? Yes, you can give out loot. I was saying that you don't need a table to tell you how much loot your players should have. They can have alot and the price they pay to have the loot will balance out the bonuses they give.
Go ahead and give your players that shiny Daiklave they want.

Sorry, but my players aren't stupid. If I give them loot that does not actually matter aside from "being there, looking cool" it's just like if I did not give it to them.
So, no ways to give loot (as I mean it, which is: something that increases the power/efficacy/something of a character and is tangible and can be gained) in Exalted? No rules about it?


The point of low difficulty task is to further the feeling of Epicness. Ordinary people struggle to forge an exceptional sword, but you bust out a masterpiece in a couple of days. Ordinary thieves have trouble with the lock on the door, but you jimmy the lock with nothing more than a toothpick and a sharp tap.
Plus, they can be useful for slowing players down. If they don't snag the chamberlain's keys, they can find navigating the palace very time consuming, especially if they don't want to be discovered.

What I mean is: if something is as trivial as that, I don't waste time and resources to get it done. I don't waste my time in a session over a trivial matter as jumping over a crate. Therefore, I do not use rules for that. I use rules to jump over a vulcano while slicing through an airship.
This last one requires a roll. It is difficult for me as a newbie ST to judge the difficulty of the roll. It is difficult to judge the resources it will consume. It is difficult therefore to add this roll to my campaign. More even so if I need to improvise it.
When playing a campaign, I want my players to feel Epic. That means I need them to do incredible things just like that one. I need to use my rules a lot to do this. The rules aren't easy enough to use compared to how many times they should be easy.

And I don't find Epic forging a normal masterwork sword in a hour, I find Epic forging The Only Sword in a month.



I've dabbled a little in 4th edition. I found it a solid, well thought out system, if a little formulaic. I have the 4e DMG on my shelf of gaming books and I have to say it contains some of the most solid gaming advice I've seen.
That said, I still had to do alot of homebrew work to get my traps, monsters, and skill encounters set up the way I wanted them to run. Sadly, the game fell apart before I even ran a single actual session.

Yeah, I too need homebrewing traps and monsters and such for my games. The difference with Exalted from my point of view is that in 4E I have rules to do that easily, with good tables (that I need to tweak a bit but that's not really REQUIRED, it's just a plus) and good advice. AND 4E has a lot of pre-made examples. It has got a MM full of monsters of every level, and a DMG with a lot of traps and hazards and many other things that Exalted Core hasn't got. But I don't have read every Exalted book, so I may be wrong on this one.


Actual, Exalts need days, and Solars and Lunars can speed that up considerably with Charms. Mortals need weeks.
Think of Exalted combat as something like a Star Wars lightsaber fight. Both combatants are extremely skilled, don't make many mistakes, and have multiple ways of keeping themselves from being hit, because the first one hit is going to go down hard.

Like I said, I like this bit. I do not like very much hps in 4E (though I like healing surges: they are a limit, not a resource). I do not like too much that resurrection is prohibited and that a single hit not only strikes hard but outright KILLS the victim. I think it would be nice to need 2 hits, even for the most skilled, to kill an Exalt. Or a critical hit.


Not being able to grow? If you put all of your Charms into a single ability, you might be able to get the last Charm in a single tree, but you will have barely scratched the surface of an Exalt's power.
XP gets funneled into new Charms, more Abilities, higher Attributes, Specialties, Essence, and Combos. You go from "D&D Epic" to "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Epic." An Essence 3 Solar can throw around statues. An Essence 6 Solar can swing swords made for 25 ft tall warmachines. An Essence 10 Solar can wrestle said warmachines to the ground barehanded!

You grow a bit, point taken. The problem is that the system does not provide appropriate challenges for your growth. You have a hard time telling what will make an Exalted flee (Essence 3). What can you challenge an Essence 10 with? TheUnconquered Sun? Has it even stats?


Um, No. A stunt does not prevent the need for a roll. Sure, you can make a difficulty 3 check to balance on top of a spear half the time, but can you keep that up for ten actions of combat? twenty? Only Charms can make checks like that go away.
Tightrope walking over a lake of lava still takes the Dex+Athletics check and if you fall no stunt is going to make the lava burn any less hot.

That cuts down half of the stunts in my book: you need to beat a DC that requires a Charm to beat, so you waste your Charm/action for a stunt that is needed to recover from the motes expenditure that a perfect defense needs?


Right. One of the mistakes to make is to use a Perfect Defense against every single attack. Some attacks just arn't likely to touch your DV or only need a little bump to get out of the way, so you use lesser defenses when you can to save Essence.

Hmm... but a perfect defense costs 2 motes, 3 motes or 4 motes for HGD, IIRC. That means it costs less than most of the other defensive Charms... doesn't it?



Let's say that your Dawn Caste buddy is dueling a Dusk Caste Abyssal in a bar. As part of his last stunt, the Abyssal leaped up onto the table, and your buddy follows. Now, you know you can't get through the Abyssal's defenses often with your dice pool, so instead of attacking the Abyssal, you attack the table, cleaving the legs of it out from under your foe.
The direct result of your action is only going to be some minor inconvienience for the Abyssal, but your buddy now has something to build off of. He can surf down the tabletop at the now grounded Abyssal, stomp hard on the other edge and try to catapult the Dusk Caste, or something else entirely. The scene just got cooler and your buddy nabbed some better stunt dice.

Wasn't it better for you to simply describe your attacks in a way to get a Stunt 2? Like: "I jump after him and as he slices towards me with his blade, I parry with my sword, use the impact to turn about mid air and then kick him with a flying kick on his back, while his sword is still going to the other side, then I use his body to jump, I flip and attack him from the back." Or something.


Ah, I see. Not entirely twinked out for Melee. Still, his Strength should have been at least 2, yielding about 9 dice after soak, which will flatten any Extra.

Well, I thought he WAS entirely twinked for melee. It just turned out that getting Melee 5 and all the Melee Charms he could get (aside for a couple of Resistance ones and Ox-Body Techniques) did not work. And as I said, those zombies had 7 HL. Does not change the fact that a Solar Exalted needed 2 hits to take it down, while a Dragon-Blooded needed only one.


What's a Lunar doing using an orichalcum Grand Goremaul? The attunement on that is stupidly expensive.

... :smallconfused:?:smalleek::smallmad::smallfrown::s mallredface:


There's your problem right there. Sidereal Martial Arts are INCREDIBLY POWERFUL Charms. They blow most other printed Charms out of the water right off the bat. A Solar under Essence 5 is going to be hard pressed to find something as game-shatteringly powerful.


Well... That's for starting a game not asking on comments here. I guess I learned that lesson...

[Aquillion]

Sorry, but my players aren't stupid. If I give them loot that does not actually matter aside from "being there, looking cool" it's just like if I did not give it to them.
So, no ways to give loot (as I mean it, which is: something that increases the power/efficacy/something of a character and is tangible and can be gained) in Exalted? No rules about it?
Loot does have several effects. First, it gives the characters more options, when they have time to prepare ahead -- an artifact that lets you breathe underwater or makes you immune to poisons, say, might be worth attuning to when you expect to encounter those problems.

Second, it can be used to barter with -- you can't pawn things in Exalted very easily (this is deliberate, to allow large amounts of loot without the Monty Haul Problem), but you can, for instance, offer someone a valuable object that you're not using in exchange for something that you need -- information, training, assistance, whatever.


You grow a bit, point taken. The problem is that the system does not provide appropriate challenges for your growth. You have a hard time telling what will make an Exalted flee (Essence 3). What can you challenge an Essence 10 with? The Unconquered Sun? Has it even stats?

Well... very few games reach Essence 10, first of all (I don't think there are even any charms printed past Essence 7). To increase your essence that high, you either need a strange trick or you have to be over a thousand years old, I think. Certainly nothing is stated out for you to fight at Essence 10, just like there are no charms intended for Essence 10 characters. But you could still fight things like the Unconquered Sun, Third Circle Demons, Primordials (one escaped according to DotFA, and it would be stronger than the ones killed before because it'll have spent the 5000+ years since then preparing specifically to kill Exalted), Unformed, and so on. These things are deliberately unstatted. And, of course, you can always fight other Exalted -- if you've reached Essence 10 as a Solar, what have all the other Solars been doing? They should have been able to reach Essence 10, too. Not all of them will be friendly or have the same goals as you.

[Tengu_temp]

So speaking of Exalted optimization: The thing you probably most have to watch out for is characters making PCs with rigorously optimized xp conservation devices. Because the cost of increasing a stat is a value multiplied by the current score in that stat, increasing lower dots is cheaper than high ones. Thus, if you wanted a 5 charisma, 4 manipulation and 5 appearance, the most efficient method would be to start with cha 5/man 1/app 5, as opposed to a more logical arrangement. Also: Spending bonus points only on things that are efficient, like Virtues, Willpower, and Abilities... although I consider that more of an efficient economic choice than the first one.

If we start with more powerful characters that receive some experience at the start of the game, I always do that. Not so much in actual game, though.

[sun_tzu]

Considering what a colossal screwup inviting the Fair Folk in ended up being in the end (Dowager insists that's the only reason the Contagion didn't work eventually), I'd almost suggest Eye and Seven would be the MOST logical co-conspirator.

Man, it's amazing how awesome Eye and Seven Dispairs makes it seem to screw up almost continuously. It's like he wins every battle and loses every war.

Wait, how does that work out? From my understanding, the Fair Folk invasion caused tons of damage to Creation. How is that a bad thing as far as the Deathlords' plans are concerned? :smallconfused:

[MeklorIlavator]

Wait, how does that work out? From my understanding, the Fair Folk invasion caused tons of damage to Creation. How is that a bad thing as far as the Deathlords' plans are concerned? :smallconfused:

What's better from their point of view: major damage to creation or destroying it? Sure, the Fey did damage, but the Contagion would have destroyed it all.

[sun_tzu]

What's better from their point of view: major damage to creation or destroying it? Sure, the Fey did damage, but the Contagion would have destroyed it all.

...
I don't follow. From my understanding, the Contagion kills those who are susceptible to it (90% of the human populations, exalted included). What did the Fey do to prevent the Contagion from completely destroying Creation?

[Kyeudo]

...
I don't follow. From my understanding, the Contagion kills those who are susceptible to it (90% of the human populations, exalted included). What did the Fey do to prevent the Contagion from completely destroying Creation?

The Great Contagion isn't so much a plague as pure stasis incarnate. It stops body functions cold, killing the victim.

The Fair Folk are chaos incarnate, change given form. Just being near a Fae can boost your chances of beating the Great Contagion. An entire army? It would immunize everyone nearby against it. The invasion of Fair Folk weakened the Contagion enough that it no longer is 90% effective. Now it's treatable.

[Artanis]

Does the Great Contagion spread like a "normal" disease does? Because if so, having vast swathes of Creation overrun by fully-immune enemies might have a sort of quarantine effect on top of the "Fae = you're immune" thing.

[Kyeudo]

@Mormegil



Sorry, but my players aren't stupid. If I give them loot that does not actually matter aside from "being there, looking cool" it's just like if I did not give it to them.
So, no ways to give loot (as I mean it, which is: something that increases the power/efficacy/something of a character and is tangible and can be gained) in Exalted? No rules about it?


Artifacts are about reliability and options. You can easily do without them and not really suffer for it, but having the extra couple of dice from a Daiklave's high Accuracy bonus on every attack is nice. Having a Yasal Crystal is nice when dealing with a truculent spirit, but it won't waive the need for Spirit Detecting Glance or Spirit Cutting Attack.



What I mean is: if something is as trivial as that, I don't waste time and resources to get it done. I don't waste my time in a session over a trivial matter as jumping over a crate. Therefore, I do not use rules for that. I use rules to jump over a vulcano while slicing through an airship.


No one even has to roll to jump over a crate and no one can jump over an entire volcano without the aid of Charms, so those are bad examples.

You throw a roll in when the chance of failure might inconvenience the players. If they are climbing out of a pit, you don't roll unless how fast it takes matters. That the pit is only ten feet deep and so has a difficulty of 2 doesn't matter. They may fail or botch and then the Wyld Hunt catches up with them while they climb out. They'll likely ace it and get going, and beating the difficulty by 3 feels good. As they say, there is no Kill like Overkill.



This last one requires a roll. It is difficult for me as a newbie ST to judge the difficulty of the roll. It is difficult to judge the resources it will consume. It is difficult therefore to add this roll to my campaign. More even so if I need to improvise it.
When playing a campaign, I want my players to feel Epic. That means I need them to do incredible things just like that one. I need to use my rules a lot to do this. The rules aren't easy enough to use compared to how many times they should be easy.


Assigning a difficulty is just like assigning a DC in D&D. Sometimes the book already covers this particular situation and you have a nice, easy resolution laid out. Other times you have to figure out what to roll to figure out if the guy shapeshifted into a frog can startle the guard sharpening his sword enough that he cuts himself. The best the book can offer is some advice on where to place that difficulty.

The rules can't cover everything, so it's a skill you just have to learn.



Like I said, I like this bit. I do not like very much hps in 4E (though I like healing surges: they are a limit, not a resource). I do not like too much that resurrection is prohibited and that a single hit not only strikes hard but outright KILLS the victim. I think it would be nice to need 2 hits, even for the most skilled, to kill an Exalt. Or a critical hit.


I was talking about Exalted vs Exalted combat. Mortals, with ordinary weapons, almost certainly need two or more blows to put down an Exalt, and that's before Armor, Soak Charms, and other effects.



You grow a bit, point taken. The problem is that the system does not provide appropriate challenges for your growth. You have a hard time telling what will make an Exalted flee (Essence 3). What can you challenge an Essence 10 with? TheUnconquered Sun? Has it even stats?


The challenge isn't the combat. It's changing the world to your liking while a thousand others with your level of power try to change it to work their way.



That cuts down half of the stunts in my book: you need to beat a DC that requires a Charm to beat, so you waste your Charm/action for a stunt that is needed to recover from the motes expenditure that a perfect defense needs?


The check for an action like that is going to be reflexive, so you still have your action and your full dice pool. The check is there to make sure the Charm still means something. After all, who'd get it if they could succeed automatically with only a stunt?



Hmm... but a perfect defense costs 2 motes, 3 motes or 4 motes for HGD, IIRC. That means it costs less than most of the other defensive Charms... doesn't it?


Depends. Shadow Over Water has gotten me out of a lot of scrapes and costs only 1 mote. A persistent defense Charm costs only a handful of motes to get running and lasts the whole scene. Ability Essence Flow + First Excellency can be a free couple of dice.

Then there's the Flaws on Perfect Defenses. Sometimes you can't activate the defense or will suffer a downside from using the Defense that you don't want to.



Wasn't it better for you to simply describe your attacks in a way to get a Stunt 2? Like: "I jump after him and as he slices towards me with his blade, I parry with my sword, use the impact to turn about mid air and then kick him with a flying kick on his back, while his sword is still going to the other side, then I use his body to jump, I flip and attack him from the back." Or something.


If the point was to get your own attack through the Abyssal's defense, yes, that kind of stunt would be better, but you are trying to set the main tank up for his attack. You can still stunt cutting the table legs off, giving you a better chance to screw with the Abyssal.

Still, I will agree that explicitly trying to set someone up for a stunt is probably rare. Most often you build on something someone did as part of their stunt to hit.



Well, I thought he WAS entirely twinked for melee. It just turned out that getting Melee 5 and all the Melee Charms he could get (aside for a couple of Resistance ones and Ox-Body Techniques) did not work. And as I said, those zombies had 7 HL. Does not change the fact that a Solar Exalted needed 2 hits to take it down, while a Dragon-Blooded needed only one.


Ah, you weren't using the zombies as Extras. That explains why the Reaper Daiklave took two hits to kill it.



Does the Great Contagion spread like a "normal" disease does? Because if so, having vast swathes of Creation overrun by fully-immune enemies might have a sort of quarantine effect on top of the "Fae = you're immune" thing.

Yeah, it spreads like an ordinary disease.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

What was this Great Contagion? It sounds nasty.

[JerryMcJerrison]

What was this Great Contagion? It sounds nasty.
The deathlords cooked it up as a way to kill everyone so they could chuck Creation into the Void. Basically, it's the deadliest disease ever.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

The Deathlords are the servants of the Primordials, right?

[The Demented One]

The Deathlords are the servants of the Primordials, right?
Sorta. They serve the Neverborn, who are what remains of the Primordials who got killed by the Exalted.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

There's a difference?

[Lochar]

The Neverborn: The Primordials killed in the battle between them and the Exalts. As they had never been born, they could not technically die. Therefore, there was no way for them to reincarnate. Their death's created the Underworld, which is a dark reflection of creation.

The Yozi: The Primordials who fought the Exalts but did not die. They were exiled to a place outside of both Creation and the mess that is the Wyld. They actually used the body of the largest of the defeated Primordials to create the prison, and bound them in oaths to not return. They are the demons.

[JerryMcJerrison]

The Deathlords are the servants of the Primordials, right?

Yep, the deathlords are the ghosts of a 13 of the Solars that were murdered during the Usurpation. They entered the service of the Neverborn so that they could get revenge on the Dragon Bloods. Technically, they're supposed to be trying the hurl Creation into the Void, but a few just want to be the boss of things again.

[Jerthanis]

That's debatable. While a Perfect Defense always wins when you activate it, there are still situations where you simply can't activate it (when you're inactive, when you're out of Essence or whatever it costs, etc.) Zeal, the argument goes, prevents you from ever even trying to activate any defenses, including perfects, by essentially skipping any steps in combat when you'd usually be given a chance to activate them; therefore UFIO never applies. Seven Shadows Evasion, say, doesn't say that you can always activate it (it just says it wins when you do manage to activate it), while essentially Zeal says you can't activate SSE (or any other defenses) -- therefore they don't conflict.

Hmm... that's perhaps true... I didn't think of it that way. You could well be right here, but I think there are aspects of the system that imply that even steps which are skipped over in attack resolution still occur in terms of what charms can be activated. For example: Counterattack Charms can be activated after the use of a Dodge or Melee perfect defense, even though the Counterattack Charms specify they're to be activated after an attack you applied your DV to, when in such a situation, you skip applying your DV, because you perfect defended in step 2. This is far from conclusive, and you sound convincing even to my ears, and I'm the one arguing against your point, so you're probably right.



That always bugged me. Why don't they just give you XP to design your character (with a few other rules for things you wouldn't normally spend XP on, rules limiting how you can spend it, rules keeping you from carrying any over, etc)?

I suppose part of the reason is because they wanted to encourage people to specialize and focus on one or two big items, while XP encourages you to spread out a bit because hey, raising everything even slightly useful to 2 or 3 is cheap. But still, it's odd.

It's also complicated as heck to apply... you're talking somewhere around 500-700 experience points if we're talking about buying up to a starting character, starting with 1 in every attribute and 0 in every ability, 1 willpower, 1 in every virtue and buying backgrounds with exp optional rule. That's a bunch of points to have to keep track of all over a character sheet.

[Jeivar]

Well, while I'm far from done with the 2nd edition corebook, a couple of my friends are already starting to think about what kind of character they want to create, and I want to be able to give them ideas. Since none of us are very skilled at social-type roleplaying, I guess we'll be going with a combat-heavy campaign (I'm jotting down notes for a country being oppressed by an out-of-control Terrestrial, plagued by bandits and Wyld barbarians and neighboring an Abyssal-controlled Shadowland), and could use some advice regarding combat and combat-related charms.

Since we're all just starting out with Exalted I'd like to avoid the terribly complex stuff, but what's a good set of combat charms to recommend? By which I mean 'not broken and causes characters to suck'. And do Martial Arts have any distinct advantage over Melee, without climbing all the way through the Martial Arts Charm tree?

[Artanis]

First, focus on one combat type. Having thrown and archery, for example, gets kinda redundant.

Second, make sure you have a perfect defense charm. Any of them should be fine.

Third, if you make a big attack combo, make sure said perfect defense is part of it. Getting killed because your Peony Blossom Attack + Hungry Tiger Technique (read: massive amounts of pain) combo left you unable to use your perfect really sucks.

Fourth, don't be afraid of limit breaks. Limit breaks are fun!



Martial Arts's big advantage is that it's not one charm tree, it's dozens, all of which can be mixed and matched. If you don't want to do that, it has no inherent advantages, and has no real inherent disadvantages if you use a sufficiently powerful one. Solar Hero Style in the corebook is one such style (it is, in fact, the 2e version of one of the 1e combat trees).

[Kyeudo]

Since we're all just starting out with Exalted I'd like to avoid the terribly complex stuff, but what's a good set of combat charms to recommend? By which I mean 'not broken and causes characters to suck'. And do Martial Arts have any distinct advantage over Melee, without climbing all the way through the Martial Arts Charm tree?

A good combat set is an Excellency in whatever ability you use to attack, plus all the Charms to one of the Perfect Defenses. Shadow Over Water and Seven Shadows Evasion is the easiest Perfect to get, but grabbing Heavenly Guardian Defense if you are going with Melee is a good idea.

Martial Arts is about the same as Melee in terms of power, unless you throw Sidereal Martial Arts in the mix.

[JerryMcJerrison]

Since we're all just starting out with Exalted I'd like to avoid the terribly complex stuff, but what's a good set of combat charms to recommend? By which I mean 'not broken and causes characters to suck'. And do Martial Arts have any distinct advantage over Melee, without climbing all the way through the Martial Arts Charm tree?

I think Martial Arts is a little bit weaker than Melee. However, Martial Arts tends to do things Melee can't. Most Martial Arts styles have Join Battle Enhancers and movement enhancers that a melee users have to branch out to get. However, martial artists have to look elsewhere to find perfect defenses.

In a one-on-one fight between a melee fighter and a martial artist, there is one very distinct advantage: clinching. In the Abyssal campaign I'm in, my character is by far the most combat focused, and has taken Ox Body 5 times. Here's how things went after the clinch started:

Me: "Frick, I guess I'll roll to get out"
*8 dice (5 Strength, plus 3 from strength boost charm) vs 20 dice*
*FAIL*
Him: "Okay, I'm gonna do a crush attack for massive damage."
Me: "FRICK. Perfect soak."
*Repeat until I don't have Essence for soak*
Me: "FRICK. Okay, I'll use Skeletor's %$#& (custom artifact, can destroy hearthstones inside it for essence explosions), will that get me a stunt bonus for my escape roll?"
ST: "2 dice."

On the last roll to get out, I rolled 12 successes on 10 dice. He rolled 11 on 20. From there on out, I was luckily able to use a knockback charm to keep him the hell away until he passed out from hitting the wall so hard.

So anyways, yeah, mostly balanced, but clinchers rule in one-on-one duels.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Yep, the deathlords are the ghosts of a 13 of the Solars that were murdered during the Usurpation. They entered the service of the Neverborn so that they could get revenge on the Dragon Bloods. Technically, they're supposed to be trying the hurl Creation into the Void, but a few just want to be the boss of things again.

And what happens when Creation gets hurled into the void? The Primordials come back to life and start over? The gods die? What?

[Lochar]

When creation gets hurled into the Void, everything is at the command of the Neverborn. Which is what they want.

[MeklorIlavator]

I thought there goal was more along the lines of destroy everything, and throwing Creation into the void would accomplish this.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

But what then? I can just imagine them destroying everything and then one of them saying "Uh, now what?"

[MeklorIlavator]

That's it. They want to destroy everything. They're like the ghosts in some stories whose only goal is to kill what killed them. After creation's gone(thus getting vengeance), they can rest in piece.

At least, that's how I rationalize it, I don't claim to be an expert on Exalted Lore, and the Abyssal's sourcebook might have gone into more detail.

[Terraoblivion]

It presents various suggestions for what their goal could be. One is just as MeklorIlavator said. Another is that they are in immense pain since they cannot die, tied to their fetter as they are. It just so happens that Creation itself is, so they can only escape the pain by destroying it all. The third one i can remember is that they are not actually trying to obliterate Creation, but merely enough of it that the wyld will swallow the rest and take the Underworld with it. And since the wyld is pure chaos without boundaries, the boundary between life and death will be voided and they will be returned to the freedom and life they used to have. There might be other ideas and the GM can always come up with his own, but these are the three i remember.

[Jeivar]

A good combat set is an Excellency in whatever ability you use to attack, plus all the Charms to one of the Perfect Defenses.

Well, what IS an Excellency, what IS a perfect defense? Sorry if I'm being thick but I've either skipped some part of the book, or just not gotten it.

My friend came over earlier, BTW, and made an anime-style princess with pink hair, master archery, and a bit of melee, with mostly athletics and archery charms.

[Aquillion]

And what happens when Creation gets hurled into the void? The Primordials come back to life and start over? The gods die? What?The Neverborn's goal is to die. When they were killed, they created the Underworld with their thoughts -- unintentionally -- as they conceived the possibility of their non-existence for the first time. But their ties to earth stopped them just before they hit oblivion, leaving them suspended just above it. They no longer want to live (and are no longer really alive), but they've decided that they can't pass into oblivion for good as long as Creation exists, because they're too tied to it (the books imply that this is not actually true, and that if you could convince them to give up their hatred for it they would pass into oblivion on their own, but it isn't clear whether they know that).


Well, what IS an Excellency, what IS a perfect defense? Sorry if I'm being thick but I've either skipped some part of the book, or just not gotten it.They're the most basic charms, listed at the beginning of the charms section. This thread explains the differences between them a bit: Here (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=261191).

[Artanis]

Well, what IS an Excellency, what IS a perfect defense? Sorry if I'm being thick but I've either skipped some part of the book, or just not gotten it.
A quick version of what Aquillon's link covers:

Excellencies are really simple charms that add dice, successes, or allow a reroll. Basically, they're "spend essence = roll better".


As for perfect defenses, they're pretty much exactly what they sound like:
Enemy: "I attack!"
You: "I use Seven Shadows Evasion. You miss. Period."
Enemy: "Aww :smallfrown: "

[Aquillion]

As for perfect defenses, they're pretty much exactly what they sound like:
Enemy: "I attack!"
You: "I use Seven Shadows Evasion. You miss. Period."
Enemy: "Aww :smallfrown: "Or, if you prefer:

Enemy: "I set off a thermonuclear bomb right next to you, completely obliterating all living things in a thirty-mile radius!"
You: "I use Seven Shadows Evasion. The explosion misses me. Period."
Enemy: "Aww :smallfrown: "

[Kyeudo]

Or, if you prefer:

Enemy: "I set off a thermonuclear bomb right next to you, completely obliterating all living things in a thirty-mile radius!"
You: "I use Seven Shadows Evasion. The explosion misses me. Period."
Enemy: "Aww :smallfrown: "

Alternatively:

Enemy: "I set off a thermonuclear bomb right next to you, completely obliterating all living things in a thirty-mile radius!"
You: "I use Adamant Skin Technique. I get a sun tan."
Enemy: "Aww :smallfrown: "

[Tengu_temp]

Stealth should have a perfect defence as well - Hide In A Fridge Method.

[Kyeudo]

Well, that only works against nukes. Exalted doesn't really use nukes. To be technically correct, we should've been talking about the 150 ft long exploding dragons made of jade-steel or the Godspear of the Five Metal Shrike.

[Aquillion]

Well, that only works against nukes. Exalted doesn't really use nukes. To be technically correct, we should've been talking about the 150 ft long exploding dragons made of jade-steel or the Godspear of the Five Metal Shrike.Soulbreaker Orbs are the closest thing, really.

Or -- actually, I guess detonating a Protoshinmaic Vortex would be the closest thing (they're basically tiny portable nuclear reactors, using Wyld energy and a baby universe instead of nuclear power. The First Age Solars used them as batteries.) I don't know if any Protoshinmaic Vortexes were ever used as weapons, though... it dissolves a huge chunk of Creation into Deep Wyld, so it's not something you'd want to do if you could avoid it (unless you were insane which, admittedly, anyone who makes a Protoshinmaic Vortex likely is by definition.)

[Kantolin]

For a little more information about perfect defenses, the three perfect defenses in the core book (That I know about) that apply to attacks are under melee, dodge, and resistance.

Melee: Heavenly Guardian Defense (Essence 2, Melee 4) [4th charm]
Dodge: Seven Shadow Evasion (Essence 2, Dodge 4) [2nd charm]
Resistance: Adamant Skin Technique (Essence 3, Resistance 5) [4th charm]

The number in brackets is how far into their respective trees they are.

They do what pretty much everyone before me has suggested, heh: Activate them and you stop an attack from harming you period, moving on. Should the Scarlet Empress focus all of the reality engines of creation into a lazer and fire said lazer at you, you could block said lazer with a rusty knife you picked up and heavenly guardian defense. [Which would break the knife, mind you, but not effect you in the slightest]

These do come with the four 'flaws' of invulnerability, which are based off your virtues. Most of these flaws, however, are generally ignorable (Conviction, for example, requires you to not be actively working against your motivation. Woo?)

Ideally, you'll be able to raise your DVs so people are unlikely to harm you, using perfects as the ultimate backup. Realistically, this depends on the game - some games result in you spamming perfects at everything.

[Jeivar]

For a little more information about perfect defenses, the three perfect defenses in the core book (That I know about) that apply to attacks are under melee, dodge, and resistance.

Melee: Heavenly Guardian Defense (Essence 2, Melee 4) [4th charm]
Dodge: Seven Shadow Evasion (Essence 2, Dodge 4) [2nd charm]
Resistance: Adamant Skin Technique (Essence 3, Resistance 5) [4th charm]

The number in brackets is how far into their respective trees they are.


Many thanks. :smallsmile: Now, to abuse everyone's helpfulness even further, could someone explain duel-wielding to me? My friend decided to go with an archer who dual-wields short swords when arrows fail.

[Tengu_temp]

Dual-wielding lets you attack more times in a flurry - with a single sword you could make up to three attacks, with two swords up to six (for example). You still suffer penalties for multiple actions, and unless stated otherwise you receive -1 accuracy penalty to off-hand attacks. First edition had some charms that boost dual-wielding, but I couldn't find any in 2e.

[Artanis]

Quick question before explaining more stuff, Jeivar: how familiar are you with the Storyteller system? It's easier to understand the impact of some charms - especially the excellencies - if you know exactly what having more dice does to a roll.

[Innis Cabal]

Dual-wielding lets you attack more times in a flurry - with a single sword you could make up to three attacks, with two swords up to six (for example). You still suffer penalties for multiple actions, and unless stated otherwise you receive -1 accuracy penalty to off-hand attacks. First edition had some charms that boost dual-wielding, but I couldn't find any in 2e.

Specalties could also add to your dual wielding pool. If you were really invested in the concept

[Aquillion]

Dual-wielding lets you attack more times in a flurry - with a single sword you could make up to three attacks, with two swords up to six (for example). You still suffer penalties for multiple actions, and unless stated otherwise you receive -1 accuracy penalty to off-hand attacks. First edition had some charms that boost dual-wielding, but I couldn't find any in 2e.Well, there is that martial arts style that lets you eliminate the offhand penalty for wielding a gun in each hand... and its form charm lets you call out an opponent, causing all the nearby extras to flee inside, lock their doors, and block their windows as your chosen enemy is compelled to step out for a showdown.

Yes, it really does all that.

[Tengu_temp]

Good point, I forgot about Righteous Devil (one of the coolest MA styles out there). No charms for melee dual wielding, though.

[JerryMcJerrison]

Stealth should have a perfect defence as well - Hide In A Fridge Method.

Now that I think of it, that's completely plausible, and Lunars can do it, but not reflexively. It would probably be like an Essence 5-6 worthy charm to do so. Especially if you include the part where you can take other people with you into your own Elsewhere pocket.

[Jeivar]

Quick question before explaining more stuff, Jeivar: how familiar are you with the Storyteller system? It's easier to understand the impact of some charms - especially the excellencies - if you know exactly what having more dice does to a roll.

Wellll, I'm still getting the hang of it. I'm kind of picking things up piece by piece, but the combat is giving me the most trouble. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around all the dodge and parry rules, and I kind of feel like the book isn't clear enough on how Flurry and dual-wielding go together. But then, that's probably just me. I always get confused with anything math-related. :smallsmile:

But is flurry really the only thing dual-wielding is good for? Given that swinging two swords around is awesome-looking but totally impractical, it seems like it should play a huge part in Exalted. :smallbiggrin:

[Tengu_temp]

Flurrying is good when you have obscenely high attack bonus. Alternatively, Exalted authors share my view of cool, where a single, huge blade is way cooler than two smaller ones.

[Felius]

Duel Wielding can be good for defense as well. You use the highest defense bonus of the weapons, which can be useful if you are using a -2 and a +4 defense weapons...

[JerryMcJerrison]

Careful when dual-wielding Glorious Solar Saber. It takes a munchkin to think you can get away with it, but there's no rule that says you can't summon a sword with Speed 5, Defense +10, everything else zero. Just holding that in your off hand can boost your defense by 5 or more, depending on what you were using first. Then you buy it again for a sword with Speed 5, Damage +10 Lethal, summon both at the same time, and get yourself one of those artifacts that double the damage of summoned essence weapons.

It's easy enough to fix though. just put a cap on how much you can boost a stat equal to their Melee score.

[Kantolin]

Dual-wielding lets you attack more times in a flurry - with a single sword you could make up to three attacks, with two swords up to six (for example).

Gah, can you give me a page or book for this information? I've been trying to hunt down dual weilding for months now, but could never seem to find any direct rules on how it works.

[Kyeudo]

Gah, can you give me a page or book for this information? I've been trying to hunt down dual weilding for months now, but could never seem to find any direct rules on how it works.

Here's how Dual Wielding and Flurries interact. Each weapon has a Rate, which is how many attacks with that weapon can be used in a Flurry. Each weapon's Rate is a seperate amount, so when wielding two weapons you can make a number of attacks equal to their combined Rate.

Example: Say you are wielding two Rate 3 swords. You can make a single attack with your full Dexterity+Melee pool with either of them (but not both) as your action. If you choose to instead flurry, you can make up to 6 attacks, 3 with each sword, but you take the appropriate flurry penalties on each attack. You get the better Defense value of either sword for determining your Parry DV.

[Jeivar]

Example: Say you are wielding two Rate 3 swords. You can make a single attack with your full Dexterity+Melee pool with either of them (but not both) as your action. If you choose to instead flurry, you can make up to 6 attacks, 3 with each sword, but you take the appropriate flurry penalties on each attack. You get the better Defense value of either sword for determining your Parry DV.

Okay, but what is the flurry penalty?

[The Mormegil]

Flurry penalty: do n action = -n dice to all actions, -1 to second action (additional), -2 to third, -3 to fourth, -4 to fifth and so on.

Say you attack six times. Attacks:
1) Melee + Dexterity -6
2) Melee + Dexterity -7
3) Melee + Dexterity -8
4) Melee + Dexterity -10 (-1 for off-hand)
5) Melee + Dexterity -11
6) Melee + Dexterity -12

Totally useless... but if you have, say, Melee 5 + 3 TWF specialization + 5 Dex + 4 accuracy you can get away with four attacks easily.

BTW, I've always wondered... can you flurry movements? If so, can you move infinite times taking an infinite penalty to a roll you don't make?

[Tengu_temp]

I'm pretty sure you can't flurry movement.

[Kyeudo]

BTW, I've always wondered... can you flurry movements? If so, can you move infinite times taking an infinite penalty to a roll you don't make?

Both Move and Dash say that you can only take one of those actions at a time and that you can't use them together.

[Jeivar]

Flurry penalty: do n action = -n dice to all actions, -1 to second action (additional), -2 to third, -3 to fourth, -4 to fifth and so on.

Say you attack six times. Attacks:
1) Melee + Dexterity -6
2) Melee + Dexterity -7
3) Melee + Dexterity -8
4) Melee + Dexterity -10 (-1 for off-hand)
5) Melee + Dexterity -11
6) Melee + Dexterity -12

Totally useless... but if you have, say, Melee 5 + 3 TWF specialization + 5 Dex + 4 accuracy you can get away with four attacks easily.

Ah, so you can take the same specialization multiple times? Like, say, +2 for chopping swords, and +3 with a firewand?

Anyway, thanks for clarifying.

[Tengu_temp]

You can take up to three specializations for any skill - they can be the same (+3 swords) or different (+2 swords, +1 axes).

[Jeivar]

You can take up to three specializations for any skill - they can be the same (+3 swords) or different (+2 swords, +1 axes).

Ok, thanks.

And now to make this thread EVEN LONGER, :smallsmile:, I have a question about the Shadowlands: Is there a way to make one go away? One of my players will be playing a princess from small kingdom that's been taken over by a deathknight, and is gradually being turned into a Shadowland.
The plan is to have her arc be about gathering power and warriors, and storm into the shadowland to take back her country and heal it. Would it be a huge no-no to just have killing the deathknight and driver her army away be enough for the land to return to normal?

[Artanis]

Ok, thanks.

And now to make this thread EVEN LONGER, :smallsmile:, I have a question about the Shadowlands: Is there a way to make one go away? One of my players will be playing a princess from small kingdom that's been taken over by a deathknight, and is gradually being turned into a Shadowland.
The plan is to have her arc be about gathering power and warriors, and storm into the shadowland to take back her country and heal it. Would it be a huge no-no to just have killing the deathknight and driver her army away be enough for the land to return to normal?
There is an official way to get rid of shadowlands. Shadowlands form where too much death has happened, so they go away when you put life there. Things like conceiving and delivering children or planting huge amounts of crops on the border will push it back. Push it back far enough, and obviously it disappears.

There's also the method of, "seriously, it's Exalted, and thinking of ways to do things like this is what Exalts do" :smallbiggrin:


As for your scenario at the end, a simple "kill the deathknight" wouldn't work. Something more Awesome involving killing the deathknight, however, would. Such as if the shadowland is only staying in existance due to a spell being maintained by the Deathknight. Or if the circle finds a First Age device that can cleanse away a shadowland. Or if one of the brainier Exalts in the circle makes a device that can cleanse away a shadowland.

Killing a deathknight and routing her army is all well and good. But getting rid of a shadowland is too good a foundation for Awesome simply to "just kill the bad guy" :smallcool:

[Kyeudo]

Ok, thanks.

And now to make this thread EVEN LONGER, :smallsmile:, I have a question about the Shadowlands: Is there a way to make one go away? One of my players will be playing a princess from small kingdom that's been taken over by a deathknight, and is gradually being turned into a Shadowland.
The plan is to have her arc be about gathering power and warriors, and storm into the shadowland to take back her country and heal it. Would it be a huge no-no to just have killing the deathknight and driver her army away be enough for the land to return to normal?

The most straightforward is to sow the entire shadowland with salt. Nothing will grow there for quite a while, but it no longer serves as a portal to the Underworld. I also think the Sidereals have a Charm that can slowly patch up a shadowland, but I'm not entirely certain.


There is an official way to get rid of shadowlands. Shadowlands form where too much death has happened, so they go away when you put life there. Things like conceiving and delivering children or planting huge amounts of crops on the border will push it back. Push it back far enough, and obviously it disappears.


Where'd you find that? I haven't run across that method in any of the books I have so far.

[Artanis]

Honestly, I don't recall :smallfrown:

[sun_tzu]

I think there's a Solar Circle spell that undoes shadowlands.

[Aquillion]

I think there's a Solar Circle spell that undoes shadowlands.Yep. By far the fastest way: Cleansing Solar Flames. 50 motes + 10 motes per 50 square miles past the first. Must be cast during the day, takes ten minutes per 50 miles of Shadowland you save, and the caster is immobilized and defenseless until it's done. Oh, and you have to cast it in the geomantic center of the Shadowland -- the point where it's darkest, usually where it was created from. And there's a huge obvious pillar of light shooting through you the whole time, marking your position from miles away... Obviously, most of the nasty things in there are going to object and try to kill you, so you'd better hope your buddies can cover you.

If you need a way for them to learn it, there's a scenario in the plot you could use as an example... The Syndics of Whitewall include a deity who knows the spell and is willing to teach it to any Solar who will purge the nearby shadowland for him. Of course, just about anyone who has the spell and doesn't hate Solars (and isn't RAKSI, CRAZY APE-LADY or a Deathlord or something) will teach it, since it's something that so obviously needs doing.

[Artanis]

That would be perfect, having to conquer the shadowland, then hold out against counter-attack long enough to cast it. And it would be even better if nobody in the Circle could actually cast the spell, because then you could get even more Awesome out of them searching for a way to cast it anyways :smallbiggrin:

[Kyeudo]

There's always spell-storing cords for packing around high level spells to be used at will.

[Jeivar]

There is an official way to get rid of shadowlands. Shadowlands form where too much death has happened, so they go away when you put life there. Things like conceiving and delivering children or planting huge amounts of crops on the border will push it back. Push it back far enough, and obviously it disappears.

. . . .

As for your scenario at the end, a simple "kill the deathknight" wouldn't work. Something more Awesome involving killing the deathknight, however, would. Such as if the shadowland is only staying in existance due to a spell being maintained by the Deathknight. Or if the circle finds a First Age device that can cleanse away a shadowland. Or if one of the brainier Exalts in the circle makes a device that can cleanse away a shadowland.


Hmm. Well, to go with something sappy; Maybe the Deathknight was befouling the land by making sacrifices in a sacred pool, and the way to heal it to have a woman give birth in it.

Or maybe I'll just have the Shadowland form juuust outside the kingdom, and the deathknight invaded from there. So the kingdom will have to be retaken, and then protected from the nasty neighbors.

Or, heck, it's our first time playing exalted. Maybe I'll just make up my own rules about how the shadowland works. Or just have it half-formed, so it's a race against time to retake the country before it falls totally into shadow.

[Kyeudo]

Or, heck, it's our first time playing exalted. Maybe I'll just make up my own rules about how the shadowland works. Or just have it half-formed, so it's a race against time to retake the country before it falls totally into shadow.

I'd go with this one.

As a general rule, a shadowland about a mile in diameter forms when roughly 500 people die in a single place within a couple of hours of each other, if some of the Void Circle Necromancy spells are anything to go by.

So, to drag a kingdom into a shadowland, several thousand would need to die all over the place, making it a kind of double edged sword: Use the kingdom's soldiers to aid you, and you'll retake the kingdom faster, but lose too many troops and you just speed the enemy's progress.

[Aquillion]

There's always spell-storing cords for packing around high level spells to be used at will.I don't know if they'd help here. The description I gave above wasn't entirely accurate on one key point: The spell's casting doesn't actually take that long, its effect does. In other words, you cast the spell in a few (relatively) short actions, then the spear of light strikes through you and things start healing. Using a spell-storing cord might only let you start the process instantly, not skip it.

...oh, and if you're interrupted or whatever before it finishes, then the shadowland surges back and undoes your work. Yeah.

[Kyeudo]

I don't know if they'd help here. The description I gave above wasn't entirely accurate on one key point: The spell's casting doesn't actually take that long, its effect does. In other words, you cast the spell in a few (relatively) short actions, then the spear of light strikes through you and things start healing. Using a spell-storing cord might only let you start the process instantly, not skip it.

...oh, and if you're interrupted or whatever before it finishes, then the shadowland surges back and undoes your work. Yeah.

If you can't cast Solar Circle Sorcery and can't get someone who can to come help, a spell storing cord can get you around that limitation.

[Lochar]

And makes for a good plot hook as well. Finding and raiding a lost Twilight Solar tomb to get one of these cords prefilled with the spell.

[Jeivar]

If you can't cast Solar Circle Sorcery and can't get someone who can to come help, a spell storing cord can get you around that limitation.

. . . Is that in the core book? Cause that's the only one I have.

[JerryMcJerrison]

. . . Is that in the core book? Cause that's the only one I have.

Sorry, nope. It's printed in Oadenol's Codex. Capture Cords take a miscellaneous action to tie a knot as a spell is being released to catch a spell. Releasing a spell costs willpower equal to the level of spell captured (1 for terrestrial, and so on), and can store up to 3 spells. They can be rated Artifact 3-5, depending on the level of spells they can catch.

Another fun thing would be to give someone a cord and not tell them whats inside the other two knots, or not tell them which knot has it.

[Aquillion]

Another fun thing would be to give someone a cord and not tell them whats inside the other two knots, or not tell them which knot has it.An old joke is to have one with Unconquerable Self in it (a spell that, for one mote, kills the caster instantly and dissolves their body in a flash of essence.)

However, it might not be possible to do that. The Cord works by having you hold it up and 'catch' an incoming spell (and it can be used to catch offensive spells cast against you, too.) Spells cast on yourself might not work.

[Jeivar]

Say, could someone give me some examples of Abyssal charms? The corebook only mentions that they are generally perversions of Solar Charms, but that's not much to go on.

[Jerthanis]

Say, could someone give me some examples of Abyssal charms? The corebook only mentions that they are generally perversions of Solar Charms, but that's not much to go on.

The Abyssal version of Fire and Stones Strike, if I remember right, instead of adding post-soak damage, cuts off limbs. Where a Solar bureaucracy charm might drive all corruption from a system, and spur it to high morale and productivity, an Abyssal charm could be used by motivating them with fear by executing a member of the system in front of the others.

They can also literally stare daggers at people... like, the people they look at can take damage from how intense the stare is.

[Lochar]

The Abyssal version of Fire and Stones Strike, if I remember right, instead of adding post-soak damage, cuts off limbs.

Ah yes. Artful Maiming Onslaught.


If the attack inflicts two or more levels of damage, though, the Exalt may reflexively pay an additional +1wp to pull and focus the blow. Doing so inflicts one amputation disability on the victim (see Exalted, p. 152).

[Lochar]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm double posting.

So sue me.

But I've got a question. Looking through the sidereals books and whatnot, they talk about Kejak being less than a decade away from death.

Yet the Core rule books have the Earth Manse Heartstone gem of immortality.

In Kejak's 5k+ years of living, he never took over a 5 dot earth manse for that stone?

[wadledo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm double posting.

So sue me.

But I've got a question. Looking through the sidereals books and whatnot, they talk about Kejak being less than a decade away from death.

Yet the Core rule books have the Earth Manse Heartstone gem of immortality.

In Kejak's 5k+ years of living, he never took over a 5 dot earth manse for that stone?

The sidereal book actually has a little explanation of exactly that situation, where a group of Sidereals gave him this big banquette and presented him the Heartstone, but he said no.
As to why? Well, apparently he said that, but nobodies saying a word about it.

[Kyeudo]

The reason is that Kejak knows Sidereals cannot boost their lifespans. Most Exalts don't live to die at old age, since eventually most run into something that even they can't handle, so this isn't a well know fact about Sidereals.

[Lochar]

Ah. That makes sense then.

Which is probably why he never tried to wrest the Scepter away from the Perfect of Paragon either. Or any number of other things that might or might not give immortality.

[Kyeudo]

I just posted this over in the Keychain of Creation thread, but I thought you guys might find this interesting.





but he is still also able to move at a decent fraction of light speed, and strong enough to hurl a supertanker into orbit.

that does sound a bit more than what we have seen any of the current exalted do yet.

Let me see about that.

A Full Moon Lunar with Strength 5, Athletics 5, Yeddim's Back Method and Tearing Claw Atemi and Lightning Flash Might Methodology Combod together and using his Anima power has a Feat of Strength score with a minimum of 30 in ordinary human form, 10 points higher than the "Lift a Yeddim, Punch a hole through a heavily armored fortress gate" line on the table. My calculator estimates that this means something in the area of 35,000 pounds. A starting Lunar can do this.

Now, if that Lunar has a Tyrant Lizard, Yeddim, or Mammoth for his Spirit Shape, he can achieve a minimum score of 56 for the purposes of Feats of Strength using the same combo of effects. My estimate of how much that can throw is 4,000,000 pounds, or 2000 tons. This is all, due to Lightning Flash Might Methodology, done as a single miscelaneous action, so roughly 5 seconds.

Now, that's not exactly throwing a supertanker into orbit, but then that's at Essence 3. An Essence 10 Lunar and the same Combo with the Second Strength Excellency added has a Feat of Strength Score of 81, which I estimate to mean a lift strength of 385,000,000 lbs or 192,500 tons.

Now, that allows you to throw the tanker. The trouble is throwing if far enough to get it above the atmostphere. Even if a Lunar comboed in Wind-Wings Carry Technique, he'd still need 450 motes to hurl it to a height of 62 miles, and Lunar Essence Pools top out at 160 motes total (Solar Essence pools top out at 190 motes total).

So, lets try a different tack. An Essence 10 Eclipse Caste Solar who has learned the Lunar Charms of the given combo can, through Strength Increasing Excercise and adding in Hill Hurling Might, easily reach a Feat of Strength Score of 85 (allowing him to throw up to 400,000 tons). Through Triple Distance Attack Technique, we can get the required motes for Wind-Wings Carry Technique down to just 15 (+2 for the cross-Exalt surchage).

(Note: The Solar could actually add an addtional 10 to his Feat of Strenght Score by adding the Second Athletics Excellency to the Combo, for a total throwing power of almost 5,000,000,000 lbs or 2,500,000 tons)

So, to throw a Supertanker into orbit, an Essence 10 Eclipse Caste Solar (Strength 10, Athletics 10) with Yeddim's Back Method, Increasing Strength Excercise, and a Combo of Tearing Claw Atemi, Lightning Flash Might Methodology, Wind-Wings Carry Technique, Hill-Hurling Might, and Triple-Distance Attack Technique is probably the minimum you'd use.

Essence cost to pull this off: 6 + 30 + 5 + 4 + 17 + 3 + 3 = 68 motes.
Cost to repeat = 68 - 36 = 32 motes.
This Solar can therefore throw 4 Supertankers into orbit in succession.

This is also using only Charms from the Lunar book and the Core book. Custom charms at high Essence should make this much easier than shown.

[Worira]

What is this "orbit" of which you speak?

[Lochar]

Creation is a finite location. If you throw something high enough (Or go high enough yourself), you find another barrier to the Wyld, just like the Elemental Poles.

Orbit is when you get to the exact point on that barrier where the Pole of Earth continues to pull you towards creation, but the pull of the Wyld barrier negates it.

Without a means of teleportation, you are stuck in orbit forever.



And yes, I just pulled this out of my arse.

[SiderealDreams]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm double posting.

So sue me.

But I've got a question. Looking through the sidereals books and whatnot, they talk about Kejak being less than a decade away from death.

Yet the Core rule books have the Earth Manse Heartstone gem of immortality.

In Kejak's 5k+ years of living, he never took over a 5 dot earth manse for that stone?

Sidereals are fated to die at a certain time, so immortality stuff doesn't work on them. That's why he refused it.

[The Rose Dragon]

The reason is that Kejak knows Sidereals cannot boost their lifespans. Most Exalts don't live to die at old age, since eventually most run into something that even they can't handle, so this isn't a well know fact about Sidereals.

Where is that revealed, may I ask?

Also, is the Scarlet Empress' fate revealed anywhere?

[Kyeudo]

Where is that revealed, may I ask?

Also, is the Scarlet Empress' fate revealed anywhere?

I can't remember where the Sidereal age thing is explicitly stated. It may have been something stated in 1st Edition that hasn't been directly reprinted. It's also so minor a detail that it's easily changed. I think it just makes good sense, though, since it gets Kejack out of the picture for the Solars to show up and start changing the world.

The comic series and minor hints in the fluff here and there, especially the ending comic from Manual of Exalted Powers: Sidereals and an entry in Roll of Glorious Divinity 2, suggests that the Empress has been kidnapped by the Ebon Dragon, who intends to marry her on the day of her funeral in Creation to somehow gain entry into the world without the call of the Unconquered Sun.