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grautry
2010-03-11, 05:04 AM
Okay, so keeping in theme with the sudden popularity of Exalted here, I bought the corebook and I'm going to GM it for a party of a few new players.

So, a couple of questions:

1. Which books are must-haves or generally good and which are to be avoided?

2. How do you make a good character? What's the general advice on things to avoid, things that are must-haves, things that are useless and so on and so forth? This especially applies to Solars but any other advice is also welcome.

3. In that vein, what is broken, broken, broken and to be forbidden at all costs?

4. I'm unsure of the purpose of limiting Celestial Exalts to one distinct reflexive charm per action. Doesn't this basically mean that if you use any offensive charm then you're unable to defend yourself unless you use it in a combo? And why do Terrestial Exalted have it easier in this regard, anyway?

5. Any especially popular house rules for the game?

Terraoblivion
2010-03-11, 05:20 AM
I'll try to answer them as well as possible. A more general piece of advice though, is to try and let go of a focus on power, efficiency and optimization. Exalted doesn't do the latter in an interesting manner, making such a focus go a long way to making the game dull. Instead keep your eyes on the narrative, the characters and the cinematic nature of your actions, that is a lot more interesting and rewarding in the long run.

1. There are no complete must-haves. What is nice to have depends largely on what you want to do. However, Oadenol's Codex and the White and Black treatise are probably the nicest. The first has a fair amount of artifacts and hearthstones, as well as a variety of less important topics. The important part of it, is the fact that it gives guidelines for how to develop and balance artifacts which is a pretty important aspect of the game, the second solves all your sorcery needs.

Wonders of the Lost Age is good too since it has tons and tons of artifacts ready to use. Scroll of the Monk would be really good if it had been at all balanced. Beyond these four books, though, it depends largely on the story you want to tell and the antagonists you want. The Rolls of Glorious Divinity are great for gods, demons and ghosts. The MoEPs are great for the respective exalt types and so on. The compasses give plenty of plothooks as well as lots of description that can inspire players and GMs to create their own. But none of the books can truly be said to be needed t run a basic Solar game. They are pretty much all quite nice, with Scroll of Exalts being the only one that has just about nothing to offer, just stats for a ton of sample NPCs.

2. There is no single guideline and the worst you can do to the game is think in that direction. Using common sense and the general themes of the game you are running as a guideline is the best you can do. Looking at the advice WW gives in the book itself is a good idea though. At least you want to be caught dead lacking a way of defending yourself if you follow it. Also excellencies in your most important abilities are a good idea, they are expensive but quite often a few more dice will solve a problem better than anything else and they are versatile too. And some will state the absolute importance of perfect defenses and ways of avoiding surprise. Don't listen to them. Listening to them and playing the game based on that sucks the fun and creativity out of it, making it an exceedingly tedious arms race instead of a game about being an epic hero doing great deeds.

3. Sidereal Martial Arts, but since they are in a supplement, requires stats solars can't start with and solars are canonically not supposed to know them that is a minor problem. The merits and flaws in Scroll of Heroes are quite exploitable, however. And there are some tricks with using charms like Glorious Solar Saber, but i don't know the details of how to pull them off since they aren't quite that obvious.

4. You still have your static defense values. These go a long way to keeping you alive despite using offensive charms. Especially when you factor in the ability to stunt and channel virtues to improve them. As for the reason for this limitation i don't think any has explicitly been given, but my take is that it forces you to balance things and judge whether to trade off security for predictability or not. And regarding why terrestrials don't have it then it is just a question of how all exalt types work essence in thematic ways. It probably also plays into their higher XP costs making a great need for combostoo brutal for them to remain effective.

5. Can't think of many, don't generally use a lot of houserules for this system. The one saying that all craft is one skill and different types of crafts are specialties are common, but i am not sure i like it or think it is a good addition to the game.

horngeek
2010-03-11, 05:47 AM
1. The core rulebook. :smalltongue:

Apart from that, whatever the hell you want.

2. What has been said, in this case.

3. I'd say SMA... except at that level, brokeness (or lack of it) is less of an issue than what is cool. SMA is also not as broken as it seems because... well, the Charms in the Sidereals book? That's all you're going to get. Ever. The books explicitly say that the reason the Sidereals have crazy broken martial arts is because they can't make up Charms of their own in any other area.

In Exalted, I do look at what's cool though (as opposed to what's balanced), so I'm biased. :smalltongue:

4. What has been said above.

5. I'd say the Craft rule (all Craft skills are one, purchase specialties- if you want Magitech or something, you have to have the specialty) is a good one if you want to do stuff that would otherwise require multiple Craft skills.

Other than that, if you're playing Lunars, use these (http://wiki.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php?title=Peter_Schaefer_on_Lunar_Character_ Generation) alternate character generation rules- they make them more able to stand up against the Solars.

Other stuff: Look at this page (http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/wiki.pl?QuotesofCoolness) for good advice on Exalted.

Also, for the love of the Unconquered Sun, Luna, Gaia AND the Five Maidens, DO NOT RUN IT LIKE D&D. Ever.

The_Snark
2010-03-11, 06:14 AM
1. Well, you have the only real must-have; everything else is icing on the cake, especially if you're strapped for cash. That said:

-The Manuals of Exalted Power are fairly necessary if you want to run a game that involves many non-Solar Exalted. The core book's bare-bones rules are enough for the Storyteller to make a few basic antagonists, but if you're using another type of Exalted heavily, either as a player option or as antagonists, you'll want the appropriate manual.

-The Black and White Treatises are invaluable for anybody who wants to play a sorcerer or necromancer. The Rolls of Glorious Divinity are handy too, if you want to summon demons or elementals, and seeing as summoning is one of the most useful applications of sorcery in the game...

-Oadenol's Codex is handy if you want to make use of manses, and has a considerably expanded list of hearthstones, as well as a number of artifacts. Wonders of the Lost Age contains nothing but artifacts; it's not my favorite book, because most of the artifacts are niche items, but if you're looking to expand the list of artifacts in your game it's good.

-The five Compass of Terrestrial Direction books are not must-buys for any sort of campaign; it's perfectly possible to run a game in any direction and run off the core book's brief summaries and the Storyteller's imagination rather than on what a book tells you. That said, I like them a lot—each one essentially consists of five or more chapters, each detailing an area. Each area has been written with the question "why would this be an interesting place to set a game?" in mind, and most of them succeed in answering it pretty well.

-The Compass of Celestial Direction books are valuable if your game involves venturing into Malfeas, Yu-Shan, the Underworld, or the Wyld. Again, not essential, but it strikes me as harder to improvise for a wildly supernatural location than for a relatively mundane place in Creation. Once you've read enough to get a feel for the place, improvising becomes much easier, but I know I didn't get a very clear impression of them from the core book. Some of the Manual of Exalted Power books can help fill in here—the Infernal book talks about Malfeas, and the Sidereal book fleshes out part of Heaven.

2. The Excellencies are cooler than they look at first. When I was starting on my first character and looking at all the neat Charms, I had a tendency to overlook them; adding dice doesn't seem very interesting compared to all the stranger Charm effects, and it's very tempting to invest heavily in a single Charm tree in order to get to some of the cooler effects.

But Excellencies are often more useful. "Do something really well" is an ability that comes up more than almost any other Charm. And your abilities are only fun when you get to use them. Take Excellencies for the Abilities you want your character to be good at, or that you think will see a lot of use. It's a good idea to have at least one combat-related Excellency and at least one Social Excellency; not absolutely essential, but it's easy to do and keeps you from feeling helpless even when out of your usual territory. Excellencies are the bread and butter of Exalted.

And they are fun. Don't take only Excellencies, but don't neglect them.

A lot of people will tell you that you absolutely need a perfect defense, but honestly, you don't need one when starting out. They're nice, but unless you plan on charging off and confronting something really powerful (or you have a Storyteller who plans to start off hard), you can get away without one for quite a while.

Lastly, think big. Solars are not just ordinary people with cool powers. Don't skimp on ability dots just because you don't think Melee 3 is justified for a pampered noble or street urchin; natural talent is enough to justify a few dots in almost anything. (If you want to be bad at something, that's another matter.) Your character is not an ordinary person. Think mythic. Use archetypes shamelessly if you feel like it. Give your hero impressive virtues and towering flaws. (The Virtue rules encourages this; it's better to start with some high Virtues and some low Virtues than all average.) Can you imagine your character starring in an epic of some variety? No? Think about retooling him so that you can.

This has very little to do with the rules, of course, but I think it helps to get in the game's intended frame of mind before coming up with character concepts. It's not much fun to be playing a Solar who doesn't feel extraordinary.

3. Um... in the core book? Nothing I can think of. Some Sidereal martial arts styles are broken, but those are from Scroll of the Monk; the charm Void Avatar Prana is broken, but that's in the Abyssals book. I'm sure there's more, but again, not in the core book. Flaws, from Scroll of Heroes, are not game-breakingly broken but aren't balanced very well either.

4. Exactly—you've just answered your own question. The purpose of limiting Celestial Exalted to one Charm only (sans combo) is to make going on all-out offense a risk. (Well, part of the purpose; the other part is to make it harder to stack a ton of offensive Charms onto one attack.) A large part of Exalted combat strategy involves balancing offense and defense. Combos and some Charms (like Excellencies!) let you attack and defend at the same time, but this tends to be expensive in motes and Willpower.

As for why Terrestrial Exalted get to ignore some of this... I'm not actually sure. Possibly because Terrestrial Exalted are likely to be frequent antagonists to Solars, and the game designers wanted to make it easier to build and run antagonists? Not worrying about Combos does that nicely.

5. A lot of people have Craft-related houserules. It's good to include something like this in a Solar game, I think, because as-is a Solar who wants to be a master craftsman has to max out several skills, and he simply doesn't get much back. My preferred solution is to lump all five basic Craft skills into one. Exotic Craft skills like Craft (magitech) and Craft (Fate) stay separate; they're generally useful enough to justify the expense.

If you play a lower-powered game, Craft is probably okay as-is.

I'm also in favor of including some sort of houserule giving players who take a sorcery-granting Charm spells; as-is, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery gives you nothing until you spend enough points to learn a spell as well as the Charm, and prerequisites that do nothing aren't very fun. Giving one free spell along with sorcery-enabling Charms is popular; I've also seen games that give the appropriate Countermagic spells for free instead of your pick of spells, to represent a basic grasp of sorcerous principles.

nargbop
2010-03-11, 08:03 AM
Read the (very extensive) background, read some character descriptions, sit in on a couple games. Exalted can be powergamed hard but it gets boring if people are slotted into their "intended" places like they are with DnD classes. If you've never played Exalted before, just make a PC with the core book.
Ask your DM "Will you kill my PC?" If the answer is yes, take Awareness 5 and Surprise Anticipation Method, then a perfect defense.
One of the fundamental problems with the system IMO is that the costs for various improvements is different for building characters vs. improving characters. For instance, a Combo is cheap to build with XP, but expensive at character creation. For this reason, when I DM Exalted, I say "You all get X experience at the beginning of the game which can only be used on Combos." In this way, my PCs can always survive an emergency without me having to pull my punches.

The Demented One
2010-03-11, 08:34 AM
1. Which books are must-haves or generally good and which are to be avoided?
The corebook, naturally. If you want to play a non-Solar, you'll want the Manual of Exalted Power for whatever it is you're playing. Sorcerers will probably want the Black and White Treatises, while martial artists may want Scroll of the Monk. Getting the Compass of Terrestrial Directions for whichever direction your campaign will be in may be nice, but that's more of a Storyteller thing.


2. How do you make a good character? What's the general advice on things to avoid, things that are must-haves, things that are useless and so on and so forth? This especially applies to Solars but any other advice is also welcome.
Talking in terms of sheer power? Combos. No matter what you want to do, you're going to want a good combo. For a combat combo, the archetypical example is to include an Excellency, some offensive charms, and some defensive charms. This is a formula that'll rarely steer you wrong.


3. In that vein, what is broken, broken, broken and to be forbidden at all costs?
Sidereal Martial Arts from Scroll of the Monk, and some of the Celestial Styles. Solar Charms from Dreams of the First Age. Merits and flaws from Scroll of the Monk. Hopefully, all of these will see errata soon.


4. I'm unsure of the purpose of limiting Celestial Exalts to one distinct reflexive charm per action. Doesn't this basically mean that if you use any offensive charm then you're unable to defend yourself unless you use it in a combo? And why do Terrestial Exalted have it easier in this regard, anyway?
It means you really need to use a combo if you're fighting Exalts.


5. Any especially popular house rules for the game?
Replacing all the elemental Crafts with one universal Craft ability. Letting people add Charms to Combos they've already developed. Giving people free Ox-Bodies for every dot of Stamina they have.

Indon
2010-03-11, 09:05 AM
3. In that vein, what is broken, broken, broken and to be forbidden at all costs?

Okay, something you need to know about Exalted: The game isn't balanced, probably by design. For the most part, Exalted is not meant to be played as a tactical wargame. Instead, it's meant to be played as a dramatic game. If you have players trying to powergame Exalted, you have a problem.

Exalted is intentionally OVER 9000. It's fairly easy to powergame, even moreso because so many major systems within it are intentionally open-ended: imagine if D&D offered Epic Magic to all characters, and you'll have an idea as to how Exalted artifacts, magic, and martial arts are all supposed to work.

As such, aggressively powergaming the system can potentially make the game very un-fun, very fast. Artifacts, hearthstones, sorcery, and supernatural martial arts, as well as some normal charms, can all facilitate this, and in aggregate they are so vital to the Exalted system that you can't realistically keep your players from doing so if they really want.

Instead, you're going to have to impress upon your players that Exalted is not like D&D, and is not about gaming the system, but about awesome storytelling. I imagine this is a part of what Horngeek is talking about when he says "do not run it like D&D".

That said, Exalted has a fairly high power level naturally. While in D&D, a character taking over the world under their own power, tippy-style, might indicate the campaign has gone awry, in Exalted, this is an entirely viable option (provided other Exalts don't beat you to it or manage to stop you) and even kinda business as usual for the system. So if your guys are training private armies, seducing cities into worshipping them by giving rousing speeches, enslaving the ancient god you sent to fight them, and so on, don't sweat it, that's normal. Just think of the consequences of the players' actions, and remember that the Exalts' greatest nemesis, in more ways than one, is themselves.


And why do Terrestial Exalted have it easier in this regard, anyway?
I imagine it's because they were designed to be foot soldiers.


5. Any especially popular house rules for the game?

If you're running a play-by-post or somesuch, you may be annoyed with the initiative system and want to tweak it some. It's definitely made with around-a-table gameplay in mind.

The Rose Dragon
2010-03-11, 10:44 AM
There seems to be some issues with Flaws and Merits, so I thought I'd state my opinion.

Flaws are very tempting, yes. Bonus points are awesome, after all, and you can never have enough of them. However, do remember that they are flaws. They will come to bite you in the ass quite frequently (at least if your ST is a killer GM like I am). Merits also cost bonus points, which are almost always better spent on Abilities, Attributes and Virtues. So if you're taking Merits, it's your own damn fault.

There are rather unbalanced examples of which, but they are usually exceptions, not the rule.

Indon
2010-03-11, 10:56 AM
There seems to be some issues with Flaws and Merits, so I thought I'd state my opinion.

Flaws are very tempting, yes. Bonus points are awesome, after all, and you can never have enough of them. However, do remember that they are flaws. They will come to bite you in the ass quite frequently (at least if your ST is a killer GM like I am). Merits also cost bonus points, which are almost always better spent on Abilities, Attributes and Virtues. So if you're taking Merits, it's your own damn fault.

There are rather unbalanced examples of which, but they are usually exceptions, not the rule.

And to build off of this, as a GM, note that flaws and merits are also a potential storytelling tool. Players can acquire some flaws or merits during the course of play, and can also overcome flaws or lose merits. The game has guidelines for this (IIRC, it's 1 bonus point for flaws/merits = 3 XP), in order to deal with flaw/merit related RP such as:

-Players gaining flaws in gameplay.
-Players 'buying off' flaws in gameplay by overcoming them.
-Players acquiring merits through various means.

Knowing this may come in handy.

Tengu_temp
2010-03-11, 12:33 PM
Other common houserules that weren't mentioned yet are abolishing training times, and letting you roll your highest Virtue instead of just Conviction for daily Willpower regain.


And there are some tricks with using charms like Glorious Solar Saber, but i don't know the details of how to pull them off since they aren't quite that obvious.


That'd be boosting your Strength to high enough level that you can wield a Grand Daiklave in one hand, and wielding Glorious Solar Saber in GD mode in offhand, with all points put into defense. Very cheesy.

Indon
2010-03-11, 12:43 PM
That'd be boosting your Strength to high enough level that you can wield a Grand Daiklave in one hand, and wielding Glorious Solar Saber in GD mode in offhand, with all points put into defense. Very cheesy.

Or wielding two GSS'es with different stats from learning the charm twice, one with offensive stats and the other with defensive ones, even.

Kylarra
2010-03-11, 12:49 PM
Out of curiosity since this is the first I've heard of it, where does it talk about wielding normally 2h weapons in 1h?

Indon
2010-03-11, 12:50 PM
Out of curiosity since this is the first I've heard of it, where does it talk about wielding normally 2h weapons in 1h?

It's somewhere in the equipment chapter. It requires bunches more strength than normal and, like things like disarming and calling shots, is honestly more for cinematic value than gaming value.

On that point, you could also exploit the combat rules with actions like disarm. The book even brings that up as a potential problem, and suggests that such abuse should not be rewarded.

Kylarra
2010-03-11, 12:51 PM
It's somewhere in the equipment chapter. It requires bunches more strength than normal.Huh, I must've missed it. I'll look again when I get home to my books, thanks. :smallsmile:

Lochar
2010-03-11, 02:47 PM
The first page of the mortal armor section, it's a sidebar box.

You require 3 times the minimum strength required to wield it normally, to do so one handed.

The Rose Dragon
2010-03-11, 02:48 PM
The first page of the mortal armor section, it's a sidebar box.

You require 3 times the minimum strength required to wield it normally, to do so one handed.

So, if you have Strength 9, you can dual-wield grand daiklaves.

It's not efficient unless they have different bonuses, but it is still fun.

horngeek
2010-03-11, 05:04 PM
Really, if I was Storytelling a game, I wouldn't ban anything- homebrewed Charms would have to have approval, but- BUT- powergaming would be stomped on hard.

They want SMA? Why do they want it- because it's cool, or because it's good for game purposes? Encourage the first, frown on the second with the Glory of the Unconquered Sun. :smalltongue:

And Indon is right when he guessed part of why I said 'don't play it like D&D'.

DragoonWraith
2010-03-11, 05:19 PM
So, if you have Strength 9, you can dual-wield grand daiklaves.

It's not efficient unless they have different bonuses, but it is still fun.
So 5 is not the maximum on Attributes? Is that also true for Abilities? There seemed to be an implied cap of 5, but I can't remember actually seeing the rule anywhere...

The Rose Dragon
2010-03-11, 05:21 PM
So 5 is not the maximum on Attributes? Is that also true for Abilities? There seemed to be an implied cap of 5, but I can't remember actually seeing the rule anywhere...

If you have Essence 5 or lower, your natural cap (without knacks, Charms, artifacts and such) is 5. For every dot of Essence above 5, you can improve your Abilities and Attributes by 1 dot above 5.

EDIT: It is possible to have Strength 9 before getting Essence 9, of course, with use of artifacts and, if you're a Lunar, Deadly Beastman Transformation and that Charm that increases your maximum Attribute cap.

Lunar Akuma have it the easiest, with both Deadly Beastman Transformation, Green Iron Heart and Demon Ink Tattoos.

DragoonWraith
2010-03-11, 05:37 PM
Aha, I see. That's good to know, I didn't realize that.

RPGuru1331
2010-03-11, 05:52 PM
Alchemicals too.

1. The Core Rulebook. I really like the Books of Sorcery and other Manuals of Exalted Power, of course, but the only technical must have is the Core Rulebook, and there are many games that can be played with Solars.

Manuals of Exalted Power: Needed to run non Solars. Very neat besides.
Books of Sorcery: Expand Sorcery, and make Artifacts easier to handle if they're not just the ones in the core book. Also gives you some ideas.

2. Unless you like being bored, don't restrict yourself to one thing. Give your characters multiple talents. Celestial Exaltations can burn into you skills from past lives. Terrestrial society has pretty much everything that can happen in a mortal society, happen, on a regular basis. It's easy to figure out how one might know these things. And your Celestial Exaltation can only affect someone who's already a mortal hero anyway.

3. Sidereal Martial Arts without Essence 6+ Charms for others. Unless Dreams of the First Age is a big disappointment, I'm pretty sure it's just that the other Exalted don't have Essence 6+ Charms in books, so SMA comes off great because it's compared against predominantly 4 and 5 Charms.

4. Terrestrials have smaller essence pools and weaker Charms anyway. As to the rest, I'm not honestly sure. I think it's related to not piling on Cascade of Cutting Terror, Icicle Fall Attack, First Thrown, a Stealth Charm that re-establishes surprise, and Seven Shadows Evasion out the gate. I'm not honestly sure.

5. I like folding Craft for Celestials, but not for Terrestrials. And probably not all Celestials; Alchemicals notably. Other then that, the only other common ones are fairly specific, and something close to Errata.

Kylarra
2010-03-11, 07:25 PM
Ahhh, sidebars are my bane. So easily missed. :(