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Leeham
2010-07-01, 04:00 PM
So I've been thinking about getting Exalted for a while now, but I don't want to go out and buy a game I know nothing about. So as the title says, please tell me all about Exalted.

Reynard
2010-07-01, 04:13 PM
Well, where do you want to start?

Thinker
2010-07-01, 04:18 PM
Exalted is a restrictive game put out by WW as a "high fantasy" alternative to DnD. Where they fail is that their game world lacks the common tropes of fantasy and puts you into some wire-fu inspired crap-fest where the players are already stronger than most of the challenges of the world. Instead of having actual viable threats to themselves, the players are forced to play monstrosities that are feared by the common populace. Instead of promoting a sense of adventure and wonderment in the world, it promotes acting out your character and avoiding the great curse, which only serves to prove that the local populace's fears were correct.

Tavar
2010-07-01, 04:20 PM
You've never read the setting/mechanics, have you?

AmberVael
2010-07-01, 04:20 PM
...please tell me all about Exalted.

Ahahahahahaha! :smallbiggrin:


There are entire books on parts of the world. Or parts of parts of the world. Theoretically, one could spend over an hour talking about a single city (yes, they HAVE put in that much detail).

Add in the history, the different types of entities and powers out there, and asking a question like this is pretty much ludicrous. For something like a D&D setting, it would be simple to give you a pretty good summary in the space of a few hours.
Exalted? Much more complex.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-01, 04:21 PM
It's high fantasy based on actual mythology (that is, it has a strong 'mythic heroes' vibe) rather than tired tropes stolen wholesale from Mr. Tolkien's works.

Instead is steals tropes wholesale from anime and wushu. Still fun, though.

Drascin
2010-07-01, 04:26 PM
I'm sure plenty of people will ninja me talking about the setting and such. However, this is the first tip I have for you if you're going to play Exalted:

Buy d10s.

A lot of them :smallbiggrin:.

The usual dice roll is on the order of 10d10, with rolls of 18+ dice not being particularly rare. So make sure everyone has enough d10s to speed up proceedings!

(When me and my players decided to give Exalted a try, we just pooled to buy a pound of d10s and split them :smalltongue:)

Mr.Bookworm
2010-07-01, 04:30 PM
http://www.chomic.net/exalted/exaltedmotivation01.jpg

Still the easiest way of explaining Exalted.

Exalted is a pretty awesome game in any case, but there's a lot to cover. The basic assumption of the game, in the core rules, is that you play one of the newly returned Solar Exalted. The Exalted are mortals divinely empowered by the gods (Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, God of Perfection and Virtue, more specifically in the Solars case).

Exalted can pretty much do anything. Get about halfway up the power scale, and you and your friends (known as a circle) can probably beat up Sol Invictus. It's again, an epic game, and common goals are things like "Take control of the most powerful empire in the world", "Defeat the Mask of Winters (a superpowered Solar ghost who wants to kill the world) and his army", etc., etc.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-01, 04:32 PM
Very broad strokes: In the beginning, the Primordials created Creation from the formless chaos of the Wyld. Then they made the Gods to manage everything and went to play X-box and generally be jerks.

The Gods decided that the Primordials were jerks, and, teaming up with two/three Primordials who actually liked mortals and the Gods, started a war. Autochthon taught the gods the process of Exaltation, which allowed them to invest mortals (specifically, humans) with their divine kick-ass powers to get around the Great Geas, which made it impossible for a God to attack a Primordial.

Long story short, the Gods and their Exalted won. They killed some of the Primordials (called Neverborn) and imprisoned the rest (called Yozis). Then the Unconquered Sun and the rest of the big dudes told the Exalted they could run Creation now, and they buggered off to play X-box.

Then the Solars, the big awesome Lords of Creation Exalted dudes, went crazy from a curse the Neverborn put on them. The Dragon-Blooded - footsoldier Exalted with far less power than Solars, Lunars or Sidereals - overthrew them, slaying the Solars and imprisoning their Exaltations in a box at the bottom of the sea.

The Dragon-Blooded set up their own government in the vein of Solar one. Unfortunately they weren't quite as good as the Solars at making the little Gods do their jobs, and they weren't quite as good as the Solars at making magical science technology, so stuff started to go downhill. Unfortunately, things went even further downhill when some of the Neverborn, woken by a few Solars and Lunars in the First Age, recruiting the ghosts of thirteen of the dead Solars. One of these ghosts fashioned a magical plague which killed most of Creation.

Then the Fair Folk attacked from the reaches of the Wyld, cutting down Creations population to around 10% - and cutting Creation's surface area in half.

Then, a heroic Dragon-Blooded stumbled across the realm Defense Grid and blew up the Fair Folk. She became the Scarlet Empress, and rueld for around a thousand years.

Five years ago, she vanished. What's worse, the Exaltations of the insane god-kids, the Solars, have begun to appear in Creation again, along with a number of powerful beings that appear to be twisted mockeries of the Solars, in service to the Neverborn.

You play as one of the returning insane god-kings. Have fun.

Types of Exalted

Solars: Chosen of the Unconquered Sun. They exemplify Awesomeness. Their super powers tend to focus on human capabilities turned up to at least 11 and often much higher. For instance, while a human might parry a knife with a sword, a Solar could parry a sword with a knife. Or a tac nuke with a spoon. Solars are also the greatest Sorcerers in Creation, capable of learning all three circles. They were hit the hardest by the Great Curse. When their virtues are tested, they slowly go madder, until they snap, and either completely ignore their primary virtue or act it out to its illogical extreme.

Lunars: Chosen of Luna. Their schtick is shapeshifting and survival. Each Lunar has a "spirit shape", a totem animal that represents them in some way, and can learn to transform into other animals by killing them and eating their hearts. Some Lunars can also turn into towering engines of destruction, referred to as their War Forms. Each Lunar is bonded to one (and only one) Solar Exaltation, and has a very hard time ignoring its host's orders. As a result of the Great Curse, they tend to go mad under the full moon. They take on animalistic behaviours based on their primary virtue.

Sidereals: Chosen of the Five Maidens. They are, basically, Jedi. They oversee Fate and make sure Creation doesn't break. They're the ones who instigated the Usurpation, and to hide their crimes they broke reality a little. Now, no one remembers they exist. Sidereals have really weird charms - one of them, for instance, allows them to fashion spoken words into arrows and kill people with them. They're also the mightiest martial artists in creation. They can, for instance, punch you so hard you turn into a lawn chair. Or they can punch everyone on continental Asia in the face, at once, twice. As a result of the Great Curse, Sidereals in any significant gathering tend to have Very Bad Ideas. Being Sidereals, they promptly execute them With Extreme Competence. See also: the Usurpation.

Abyssals: Chosen of the Neverborn. These are literally twisted Solars who work for the Underworld. They spread death and decay wherever they go. Their superpowers tend to be a little stronger but less general than Solar ones. They're the foremost Necromancers in the Underworld, capable of learning all three circles. They don't suffer from the Great Curse, their Neverborn masters having wisely removed it. Instead, if they anger their Neverborn masters, they tend to accrue Resonance. This has a habit of exploding and killing things.

Infernals: Chosen of Hell. These are also twisted Solars, who are used as weapons to wage war on Creation on behalf of the Yozis, in an attempt to let their masters escape their bonds. Their charms are very powerful and flexible, but also come with quite serious drawbacks in most cases. Like Solars, they can learn all three circles of Sorcery, and, with a specific charm, all three circles of Necromancy too. Like Abyssals, they don't suffer the Great Curse either. However, if they anger their Yozi masters, they still gain Limit, and if they do it too much the Yozis lash out at them and their loved ones. On the plus side, they can remove Limit by acting like sufficiently convincing B-movie villains.

Alchemicals: Chosen of Autochthon. Unlike other Exalted, which are humans given some extra oomph, Alchemicals are reincarnated human souls put into robot bodies. As robots, they can replace their parts and customise their super powers to an absurd degree. They don't suffer from the Great Curse, having not taken part in the Primordial war, but they do tend to get slowly more emotionless and detached over time. Eventually, they turn into cities.

Dragon-Blooded: The Chosen of the Elemental Dragons. The footsoldiers of the Exalted. Unlike Celestial Exalted (Solars, Lunars and Sidereals, as well as Abyssals and Infernals), they have no set number, and pass on their powers through the miracle of eugenics. Terrestrials come in five flavours: Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Wood. They're much less powerful than other Exalted, and can only learn the first circle of Sorcery or Necromancy, and can only learn Celestial Martial Arts if they really push themselves. But they are great at teamwork. Because of the Great Curse, they tend to act like *****.

*whew*

Kylarra
2010-07-01, 04:33 PM
1d4 chan's explanation of exalted (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Exalted).

Standard 1d4chan warning, but still a pretty good read.

Poison_Fish
2010-07-01, 04:42 PM
Exalted is a restrictive game put out by WW as a "high fantasy" alternative to DnD. Where they fail is that their game world lacks the common tropes of fantasy and puts you into some wire-fu inspired crap-fest where the players are already stronger than most of the challenges of the world. Instead of having actual viable threats to themselves, the players are forced to play monstrosities that are feared by the common populace. Instead of promoting a sense of adventure and wonderment in the world, it promotes acting out your character and avoiding the great curse, which only serves to prove that the local populace's fears were correct.

http://rahiel.dlnet.org/images/TrollFace.png

Edit: But seriously. I find it funny that you first state it's an "alternative to D&D" then get angry that it lacks common fantasy tropes. Now let's think here, hrm... alternative.. being different... from common. BRILLIANT!

Tavar
2010-07-01, 04:49 PM
A fun explanation:
Exalted is a game where one of your main antagonists is Death, Creator of the Underworld. Except there's several of him, probally six or seven. Oh, and he's got 13 dread henchmen, one of whom was probally you at some point in time. Also, Hell has a personal grudge against you this time. Did I mention Magical America regularly trains and sends ninjas out for you personally? Ninjas specially trained in asskicking? Which, if they won't work, they keep giant robotic suits of armor on reserve for. Oh, and the Transformers have united under Omicron, and are invading. The Jedi have corrupted Heaven and usurped your rightful place as the Masters of Everything. Your ex-wife just dropped by, and she's a two thousand year old shapechaning maneating monser now, interested in maybe going on a date next Thursday. Your best friend from your last life and while growing up now seeks to cover all the lands of Middle Earth in darkness, if he can just find this damn ring. And your God has the world's biggest crackhabit, and needs some serious rehab.

More funny stuff can be found here (http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/QuotesofGoodness)
More serious stuff can be found here (http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/QuotesofCoolness).

I find that reading those quotes, especially from the more serious page, helps a lot.

Drascin
2010-07-01, 05:03 PM
(snip)

You play as one of the returning insane god-kings. Have fun.

Well, or not. There's plenty of material for playing other stuff, if insane radiant god-kings aren't your cup or tea. But on the whole, Yuki's summary is pretty good.

That said, much like Kylarra, I personally find 1d4chan's explanation the best (yeah, never thought I'd be saying that :smallconfused:).

Coplantor
2010-07-01, 06:29 PM
*fun stuff*

If I hadnīt read the sourcebooks, Iīd say you are joking.

Tetsubo 57
2010-07-01, 06:40 PM
You've never read the setting/mechanics, have you?

I tried. But it was simply too dense.

Reynard
2010-07-01, 06:50 PM
Roll a lot of d10s, if you get 7 or higher on a dice, yay!.
If you get a 10, double-yay!

Make a good description of your action, get more dice, and some glowy, tasty essence.

Deca
2010-07-01, 07:06 PM
Well, if we're going for comedic descriptions, I've always liked:

"In Call of Cthulu, you go insane when you see Cthulhu. In Exalted, you cut him in half before beating him to death with his own tentacles."

AvatarZero
2010-07-01, 07:14 PM
Exalted is DnD, but aware of it's own mechanics in game and dynamics around the table. (Let me just clarify that I love both :smallsmile:)

High level DnD characters have so many HP that they can't possibly be harmed by ordinary attacks and pretty much must be physically tougher than a human being can be. (70HP means I can be on fire for a minute and have no chance of permanent injury.) Exalted has charms available to starting characters that nullify attacks and make them unnaturally tough. In fact, if you're using perfect defenses, your essence pool is essentially identical to a DnD character's HP.

Not good enough? OK: never let a stranger talk to you. Even if they just burned down your village and killed your parents, never let them open their mouth, because if you do then they can make you forgive them and even help them kill more people. Exalted social charm, aka really good modifier on your Diplomacy check.

I have more: Dave's character gets killed off, so at the next convenient moment a new PC gets brought in for him to play. That character goes from NPC to PC, which is a pretty massive promotion (coupled with some murderous tendencies towards anyone who crosses the party). The party accepts this new character despite never having met the guy before; after all, it's Dave's character and still acts like Dave. You don't have to play DnD like that, but you probably should play Exalted like that since that's how Exaltation works.

And there are also minor things, like Exalted's Castes matching up to the classic quartet of Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Thief (with a fifth wheel Bard thrown in there), but either I've made my point or I haven't by now.

Masaioh
2010-07-01, 07:17 PM
I'm tagging this thread, because I have thought about getting into Exalted as well.

My main question is: do I only need one core book to start running a game, or is it like DnD where I need a set of books?

Sanguine
2010-07-01, 07:22 PM
^^I would like to point out that Zeniths are only like Clerics in that they are both preists. The main thing most think of when they think of Clerics is healing magic and bringing people from the dead(regardless of whether or not focusing on that is a smart move) In Exalted bringing people back from the dead is impossible(though apparently the Yozis can do it indirectly if you let them change your past) and the closest aproximation of what most people think of as healing magic is incredibly intensive to be able to do at Char Gen and actually falls to a Twilight Ability, not to mention is rooted in actual medical knowledge not faith.

Edit:^It is possible to run it with just the Core Book but I personally wouldn't suggest it. I would suggest getting one or two Mauals of Exalted Power as well if you plan on running it. (Or possibly the Storytellers Companion, I don't have it so I can't say how good the rules for Antagonists in it are.)

Deca
2010-07-01, 07:31 PM
I'm tagging this thread, because I have thought about getting into Exalted as well.

My main question is: do I only need one core book to start running a game, or is it like DnD where I need a set of books?

The Core Book has the setting, the rule mechanics and the rules for playing Solar Exalted. In the 'Antagonists' section, it details a few common charms and builds for other types of Exalted. So, it is possible to play with just the Core book, just a bit limiting.

AmberVael
2010-07-01, 07:35 PM
Exalted is DnD, but aware of it's own mechanics in game and dynamics around the table. (Let me just clarify that I love both :smallsmile:)

I... don't think I would make that comparison. :smallconfused:

I like them both too, don't get me wrong, but the two are different in terms of mechanics, fluff, creators, sources of inspiration... the only thing they really seem to share is the fact that they're roleplaying games.

tonberrian
2010-07-01, 07:37 PM
I'm tagging this thread, because I have thought about getting into Exalted as well.

My main question is: do I only need one core book to start running a game, or is it like DnD where I need a set of books?

Technically only the one core book. Exalted has no Monster Manual analogue, so you'd have to make your own NPC's anyways, and the core covers enough that you don't need anything else.

That isn't to say you wouldn't want anything else, though. The Manuals of Exalted Power let you play something other than returning God-Kings (with Alchemicals adding a separate, sparsely detailed steampunk setting to explore), the various Compasses detail various locales (the Celestial Compasses are generally for the different planes of existence, while the Terrestrial Compasses descripe the five corners of Creation), Books of Sorcery expand on certain available options (Artifacts, minor [and not so minor] magics, Sorcery, Gods and Elementals, and Demons respectively), and the Scrolls are grab-bag, both in quality and material.

Kyeudo
2010-07-01, 08:06 PM
Here's the best way I've ever seen to showcase the difference between D&D and Exalted.

In D&D, if you are the party's main swordsman and you find yourself clapped in irons in a dungeon and scheduled for execution the next day, you hope your party members can rescue you fast enough. In Exalted, you break out of your manacles through sheer force of will, pick the lock with your teeth, kill the guards with your bare hands, storm the keep alone, drag the warden out to the gallows meant for you, hang him on it, and are sitting on a smouldering pile of rubble when your party members finally decide to stroll on up.

Jokasti
2010-07-01, 08:15 PM
Here's the best way I've ever seen to showcase the difference between D&D and Exalted.

In D&D, if you are the party's main swordsman and you find yourself clapped in irons in a dungeon and scheduled for execution the next day, you hope your party members can rescue you fast enough. In Exalted, you break out of your manacles through sheer force of will, pick the lock with your teeth, kill the guards with your bare hands, storm the keep alone, drag the warden out to the gallows meant for you, hang him on it, and are sitting on a smouldering pile of rubble when your party members finally decide to stroll on up.

After they've taken control of the Scavenger Lands.

Kyeudo
2010-07-01, 08:28 PM
"What took you so long?"

"Well, Thorns was giving us some trouble, so we had to stop for a few hours while the Twilight cast Light of Solar Cleansing and fixed that shadowland problem they had. Then we hit Lookshy and then the Zenith got into a religious debate with the local priest and you know how that goes."

"Alright, I'll let you off the hook this time, but I get dibs on the next time we level Gem."

Zaq
2010-07-01, 08:30 PM
I have been told that you can take two starting characters with the same starting resources (point-buy or whatever), have them choose the exact same charms and paths and skills and what have you, and have one be markedly more powerful than the other, because he made his choices in the right order.

If this is true (and I do trust the person who told me this, as she does play the game)... yeah. Any game that makes 3.5's character creation look streamlined gets a major :smallconfused: from me until someone gives me a profound reason to think otherwise.

Mr.Bookworm
2010-07-01, 08:42 PM
I have been told that you can take two starting characters with the same starting resources (point-buy or whatever), have them choose the exact same charms and paths and skills and what have you, and have one be markedly more powerful than the other, because he made his choices in the right order.

If this is true (and I do trust the person who told me this, as she does play the game)... yeah. Any game that makes 3.5's character creation look streamlined gets a major :smallconfused: from me until someone gives me a profound reason to think otherwise.

:smallconfused:

My op-fu in Exalted is stuck at the Terrestial styles, but I seriously doubt it. You make choices in the exact same order no matter what you're playing at character creation.

And if you pick the same everything, you are mechanically playing the same character.

AmberVael
2010-07-01, 08:45 PM
The only way I know of for that to be true is if you're creating a character who is allowed to use XP and bonus points. In which case it could happen. There is no steady XP/Bonus Point ratio, and in fact, there can be some quite ridiculous disparities between them. Two people with the same XP and BP, and same build, could end up with one character being behind the other in terms of progress depending on how they spent the resources allotted to them.

But that's not really a typical scenario. Generally, when you're making a new character, you only have bonus points. Generally. Sometimes it is different.

V: Ah, that's a good point. I guess buying the cheapest abilities with BP is so ingrained in my mind that the alternative doesn't even occur anymore.

Kylarra
2010-07-01, 08:49 PM
I have been told that you can take two starting characters with the same starting resources (point-buy or whatever), have them choose the exact same charms and paths and skills and what have you, and have one be markedly more powerful than the other, because he made his choices in the right order.

If this is true (and I do trust the person who told me this, as she does play the game)... yeah. Any game that makes 3.5's character creation look streamlined gets a major :smallconfused: from me until someone gives me a profound reason to think otherwise.There is a way to do it, but it involves deliberately making poor choices, such as purchasing favored/caste abilities/charms using your standard allotment of abilities/charms (they cost less bonus points) and then purchasing the non-favored/caste ones using bonus points (they cost more).

A basic understanding of math and how the system works makes this scenario easily avoidable, though the XP situation is less so.


Edit:^It is possible to run it with just the Core Book but I personally wouldn't suggest it. I would suggest getting one or two Mauals of Exalted Power as well if you plan on running it. (Or possibly the Storytellers Companion, I don't have it so I can't say how good the rules for Antagonists in it are.)Storyteller companion is great for quickstatting antagonists, but I tend to use this (http://wiki.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php?title=User:Epsilon/NPC_System) for fastbuilding now, so it's less useful to me.

TheOOB
2010-07-01, 09:03 PM
Exalted is a system where a starting character (assuming they are playing a solar exalt) can start with a power that will block any attack. ANY ATTACK. Hammer blow from someone five times stronger then you, will block it. Swarm of millions of butterflied made from razor sharp butterflies(also something a starting character can do), block it. Beam from the death star, blocks it. Not only can you start with this abilities, but most starting characters will. Not only that, but a starting solar exalt can use that power over 10 times in a row, more if they stunt.

If that kind of power sounds fun, exalted is great, if not, better to avoid. It's a setting with great stories in it, but it's a lot of work to play. the rules only barely hold together in some parts, and making suitable NPCs is a real burdan for the GM.

Drascin
2010-07-02, 01:58 AM
Exalted is a system where a starting character (assuming they are playing a solar exalt) can start with a power that will block any attack. ANY ATTACK. Hammer blow from someone five times stronger then you, will block it. Swarm of millions of butterflied made from razor sharp butterflies(also something a starting character can do), block it. Beam from the death star, blocks it. Not only can you start with this abilities, but most starting characters will. Not only that, but a starting solar exalt can use that power over 10 times in a row, more if they stunt.


This has the problem, of course, that the developers seem to have pretty much assumed everyone would have them. Word to the wise - don't be fooled by all the "Exalts are supernaturally tough" fluff in the books. They're only supernaturally tough compared to mortals, who in Exalted are treated more or less like blind, lame kobolds with mental problems :smalltongue:. Everything in this game is a glass cannon and there's no resurrection - make sure to insist to your players to invest in defensive charms if you intend to have combat be a decent percentage of the campaign. The common houserule of giving everyone a free Ox-Body per Stamina dot also helps.

Poison_Fish
2010-07-02, 04:58 AM
This has the problem, of course, that the developers seem to have pretty much assumed everyone would have them. Word to the wise - don't be fooled by all the "Exalts are supernaturally tough" fluff in the books. They're only supernaturally tough compared to mortals, who in Exalted are treated more or less like blind, lame kobolds with mental problems :smalltongue:. Everything in this game is a glass cannon and there's no resurrection - make sure to insist to your players to invest in defensive charms if you intend to have combat be a decent percentage of the campaign. The common houserule of giving everyone a free Ox-Body per Stamina dot also helps.

Also this varies by GM as well. I tend to ask my players what sort of focus they'd like in the game, and tend to create encounters relative to their abilities. Unlike D&D, there is no easy way of just lining up equal level opponents based on the party level. But at the same time, the game isn't just focused in combat mechanics and extended skill checks.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-02, 05:19 AM
I prefer the "I dodge" charm. Because it has less prerequisites and is even more physics-bendingly weird than parrying or soaking anything.

"I throw Creation at you!"
"I dodge."
"But, it's... ten thousand mil-"
"I dodge."

Drascin
2010-07-02, 06:03 AM
Also this varies by GM as well. I tend to ask my players what sort of focus they'd like in the game, and tend to create encounters relative to their abilities. Unlike D&D, there is no easy way of just lining up equal level opponents based on the party level. But at the same time, the game isn't just focused in combat mechanics and extended skill checks.

Yeah, I did say "if you intend to have combat be a decent percentage of the campaign". If you're having the focus be completely in not-physical-combat, then it doesn't apply (well, or yes, only you'd need perfect social defenses instead, because Exalted Social Combat is probably even more dangerous than the physical one. At least in physical combat you can only get killed, instead of being made to betray all you love and hold dear for one scene and then have to live with the guilt forever, or made to fall in love with the freaking Mask of Winters :smalltongue:). But if you're playing a mildly combat-heavy game, investing a few charms in defense is very much a necessity, which many players don't realize at first - offense charms are much less important than defense ones. This isn't D&D, where you can trust HP and good saves to keep you alive for a while while you attack. You need Charms.


I prefer the "I dodge" charm. Because it has less prerequisites and is even more physics-bendingly weird than parrying or soaking anything.

"I throw Ceration at you!"
"I dodge."
"But, it's... ten thousand mil-"
"I dodge."

Eh, I always preferred the Alchemical version for that. I just love the sheer simplicity of the thing, no physics-defying dodges or infinite speed objects - you simply blink from the universe for a second and let the attack go past, then appear again :smallbiggrin:.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-02, 06:06 AM
Seven Shadows Evasion only has a single prerequisite charm. You can afford to have a perfect dodge even if you only see combat every other session.

Unless you're playing something other than a Solar or Abyssal - even Infernals have a few more charms to get before their perfects, and Lunars and Sidereals have it even worse.

Not sure about Alchemicals. Terrestrials don't even have proper perfects. They can perfectly defend only against attacks they could defend against anyway.

And, as always, enlightened mortals are screwed, and Fair Folk, Jadeborn, Dragon-Kings and God-Blooded are weird.

Terazul
2010-07-02, 08:30 AM
Unless you're playing something other than a Solar or Abyssal - even Infernals have a few more charms to get before their perfects, and Lunars and Sidereals have it even worse.


Eh? I dunno about Lunars, but Duck Fate only has one prerequisite. Yay perfect dodge for anything that would cause any sort of harm ever!

And for the new guys, we talk alot about perfectly parrying, dodging, and whatnot, but they're not actions you'd want to pull every few ticks ('round') of combat; You only get to use one charm per action, barring fancy combos. And that crap eats through essence like woah. Stunt harder.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-02, 08:32 AM
Oh yeah, Duck Fate.

I prefer Avoidance Kata.

"I was never there. You didn't see me. You can't prove anything."

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-02, 08:34 AM
And for the new guys, we talk alot about perfectly parrying, dodging, and whatnot, but they're not actions you'd want to pull every few ticks ('round') of combat; You only get to use one charm per action, barring fancy combos. And that crap eats through essence like woah. Stunt harder.

Eats through Essence? Your Willpower will run out far earlier than your Essence pools.

Of course, it was implied that I'm too cruel an ST and am far too strict with my interpretation of stunts that allow Willpower recovery, so my experience is not necessarily representative of the whole.

9mm
2010-07-02, 09:11 AM
I guess it's up to me to point out Keychain of Creation (http://keychain.patternspider.net/); it's like OotS, but for exalted.

Oslecamo
2010-07-02, 09:54 AM
I guess it's up to me to point out Keychain of Creation (http://keychain.patternspider.net/); it's like OotS, but for exalted.

Personally, I consider that comic second rate when compared to the pure awesomess that is Oots story and humor wise. Showing once again that you don't need to be a god in a world of easily crusheable insects to be awesome like Exalted would want you to believe.

kamikasei
2010-07-02, 10:04 AM
I'm sorry good sir, but don't dare to compare that second rate comic to the pure awesomess that is Oots.

KoC is self-evidently comparable to OotS, regardless of whether you consider the latter a better comic, and is actually a useful answer to the OP, which your post is not.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-02, 10:08 AM
I'm sorry good sir, but don't dare to compare that second rate comic to the pure awesomess that is Oots.

Heh. *insert mocking laughter here*

Obviously it is a huge case of your mileage varying from mine in these bolded parts.

Drascin
2010-07-02, 10:15 AM
Seven Shadows Evasion only has a single prerequisite charm. You can afford to have a perfect dodge even if you only see combat every other session.

Unless you're playing something other than a Solar or Abyssal - even Infernals have a few more charms to get before their perfects, and Lunars and Sidereals have it even worse.

Indeed. However, my point is more on the "priority" thing. Buying defense takes priority over buying offense. And in-combat, keeping defenses ready is also more important than offense. This is more or less the opposite to almost every other single game I've played in my life, so I thought I probably should mention it as a peculiarity of Exalted.


KoC is self-evidently comparable to OotS, regardless of whether you consider the latter a better comic, and is actually a useful answer to the OP, which your post is not.

In addition, Jukashi has said that OotS was one of his inspirations for starting KoC, so even if it's only in an imitation way, you can indeed compare them.

Oslecamo
2010-07-02, 10:36 AM
KoC is self-evidently comparable to OotS, regardless of whether you consider the latter a better comic,

In drawing style sure, but not really in quality story and humor wise. Excuse me for considering the last two important parts of a comic as well.



and is actually a useful answer to the OP, which your post is not.

Check out the edited version. I point out that one of the main flaws of Exalted, that your character starts much stronger than 99.99% of everything else in the seting. Plenty of people don't exactly consider that heroic.

kamikasei
2010-07-02, 10:41 AM
In drawing style sure, but not really in quality story and humor wise. Excuse me for considering the last two important parts of a comic as well.
You're excused so long as you're not telling people to "not dare" to compare two things where:
- one is directly inspired by the other.
- they use similar art.
- they have a similar relationship to original works in the same niche (tabletop roleplaying games).

Now, what do your posts adds to the OP question exactly?
I view pointing out the superfluity of your contribution as a public service.

Check out the edited version. I point out that one of the main flaws of Exalted, that your character starts much stronger than anything else. Plenty of people don't exactly consider that heroic.
I didn't see a reason to respond to the token point (already put forward by others anyway) you were holding out like a fig leaf to cover your flaming.

The Glyphstone
2010-07-02, 10:42 AM
Check out the edited version. I point out that one of the main flaws of Exalted, that your character starts much stronger than 99.99% of everything else in the seting. Plenty of people don't exactly consider that heroic.

Now, what do your posts adds to the OP question exactly?

Starting characters in D&D are also stronger than 99.99% of all other living things in the setting, once you factor in bugs, kittens (if you're not a commoner), toads, and other fractional HD animals. And yet, D&D is plenty heroic. The difference is that in Exalted, the "bugs and kittens" level of power is equal to the power of baseline humans in other settings. If D&D's default setting had bats and rats and ant colonies with kingdoms and empires speaking intelligently and sapiently, it'd be a paradigm much closer to Exalted.

Lapak
2010-07-02, 10:46 AM
Check out the edited version. I point out that one of the main flaws of Exalted, that your character starts much stronger than 99.99% of everything else in the seting. Plenty of people don't exactly consider that heroic.

Now, what do your posts adds to the OP question exactly?How much have you read of the comic? How much of the Exalted setting? The comic is setting-consistent and the protagonists have only been outright stronger than one set of opponents so far. They've been on the losing end of raw power against, let's see...
- Abyssals, twice
- A single Alchemical
- A single Sidereal

And overpowered a Fey opponent. Once.

They've spent much more time losing fights than winning them. Which is on-point, because the idea of Exalted is that you are a being of ridiculous power, a demigod in the flesh, and that your strength is often not sufficient to the task presented. Creation is coming apart at the seams. The powers that should hold it together are either absent, disinterested, ignorant of the problems, fighting each other, fatally flawed at a fundamental level, or too weak to hold things together. The forces working against it are better organized, better motivated, more focused, and gaining strength all the time. The PC (assuming a standard Solar-type game) are some of the few beings that have an outside shot at starting to put things right, but their own flaws run beyond their control and much of the world doesn't want their help to begin with.

It's a game where even ultimate power is only enough to provide a glimmer of hope, and the fact that you can overcome impossible odds means that you have the very bare essentials required to attempt a solution to the setting's problems.

EDIT: I've got all kinds of issues with the game mechanically, but the setting is most certainly one that encourages heroic play.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-02, 10:46 AM
Check out the edited version. I point out that one of the main flaws of Exalted, that your character starts much stronger than 99.99% of everything else in the seting. Plenty of people don't exactly consider that heroic.

And humans start much stronger than 99.99% of everything else in the world, if you consider an ant and a lion to be the same amount of "thing". A lion is still likely to be a threat to a human, despite the millions of ants that aren't (unless you choke on them or something).

Just like D&D is not about adventurers fighting non-venomous ants, Exalted is not about Exalts fighting least gods of blades of grass.

Oslecamo
2010-07-02, 10:51 AM
Starting characters in D&D are also stronger than 99.99% of all other living things in the setting, once you factor in bugs, kittens (if you're not a commoner), toads, and other fractional HD animals.

In D&D I can actualy optimize even a kitten to be quite a threat to 1st level players thanks to stuff like Incarnum feats. Tucker kobolds is a prime example of this as a 1/4 CR mooks that can give the party a run for it's money. In Exalted if I want a mortal to be a threat to a exalted...

Plus in Exalted, like already pointed out, a planet could fall over your character's head and you could easily shrug it off. So even the enviroment itself hardly poses a threat to you while rocks falling over your head can still kill you in D&D untill you're at higher levels.

9mm
2010-07-02, 11:00 AM
In D&D I can actualy optimize even a kitten to be quite a threat to 1st level players thanks to stuff like Incarnum feats. Tucker kobolds is a prime example of this as a 1/4 CR mooks that can give the party a run for it's money. In Exalted if I want a mortal to be a threat to a exalted...

Plus in Exalted, like already pointed out, a planet could fall over your character's head and you could easily shrug it off. So even the enviroment itself hardly poses a threat to you while rocks falling over your head can still kill you in D&D untill you're at higher levels.

so another game is different from D&D? Who wouldathunkit?

this is like complaining Shadowrun is to explosion happy compared to D&D, or BESM is to caroony. Exalted runs on a diffent pardimn if you don't like it so be it, but others LIKE playing at that level of power, you know the people who think "real D&D" starts at level 30...

Tavar
2010-07-02, 11:06 AM
Considering that level 1 creatures stop being a challenge to level 6 characters, I don't think you have a leg to stand on in your complaints.

Dairun Cates
2010-07-02, 11:07 AM
Alright. It's no secret that I absolutely ABHOR Exalted as a system, but I DO understand the draw. It's just really not my cup of tea.

There's a lot of long-winded and "go read this" answers out there. I'm going to make this REALLY easy on you. Look at this checklist and compare.

As a Player, You Will Like Exalted:
-You wanna be really super-powered and able to do completely ridiculous over the top death dealing with super cool acrobatic stunts.
-You like picking through a lot of books to power-game a character to his or her maximum potential.
-If you like the idea of 90% of living things not even really being able to lay a finger on you.
-You don't mind if a game is incredibly unbalanced.
-You like the idea of playing one of the following archetypes: A super gritty superhero that has a troubled personality, a transforming animal that can turn into a giant fearsome amalgamation of death, a power ranger with green skin, Pat Morita, the super hero thing only evil, a mortal or son of a god that MIGHT survive if you're not an idiot, or a Giant Robot Pilot.

As a Player, You Will HATE Exalted:
-If you saw that there were underdog Exalted that were hunting down the guys that were being jerks and assumed you were going to be playing them. Most parties START as the jerks. They're called Solars (a lot of groups actually play the other styles more frequently, because a lot of people DO find the Solars boring).
-You insist that other characters be near a similar power level (picking different types of Exalt will generally destroy a party).
-You like FAST character creation.
-If when you hear about those D&D campaigns where people actually fight Gods and progress to level 68, you roll your eyes.
-You DON'T want to play something even remotely similar to the above achetypes.

As a GM, You Will Like Exalted:
-If you like your players pulling off epic shenanigans and killing gods. If you frequently run D&D campaigns STARTING at level 15 and up, then you might want to switch.
-You like the sound of dice rolling, because there's going to be a lot of them and that sound is VERY hypnotic.

As a GM, You Will HATE Exalted:
-If you like giving the players a challenge without outright trying to kill them at most every turn. Your players will either be nearly massacred at every turn or won't even see a scratch.
-If you don't want to have to spend a LARGE portion of your planning statting out characters for your players to fight. If you don't know the system in and out, your players will probably steamroll anything you write up, and the monsters in the back of the book are not really too good at dealing with even moderately optimized characters.

That sounds like a lot of nitpicking, but essentially, if you can look at most of that and still say "okay", you'll like Exalted. It's got a lot of flavor (mind you, some of it is rather random and inconsistent), but when people talk about it being so great, they've usually fallen in love with the over-the-topness and large world history.

However, if you really can look at that and this sounds like the worst thing ever, then stay away from Exalted like the plague. The mechanics don't always hold up and even simple combat can be pretty ridiculously long-winded.

Drascin
2010-07-02, 11:11 AM
Pretty much what Lapak said. Something needs to be remembered - for all its pretenses of power and coolness and kicking reason to the curb, Exalted is still made by White Wolf. And as we all know White Wolf is physically incapable of making hopeful settings :smalltongue: (though from what I hear, the new Promethean is a bit of a break from that). In Exalted as written, you can't save the world. For all your supposed megawesome power, you will (may) only turn the doom clock back a little bit - Creation will still be boned when you die, unless yours is one of those extremely rare chronicles that goes over, say, Essence 7 or so, tops. It was more or less designed to be boned, and the fact that all its defenders are pretty much a bunch of infighting idiots while its enemies are coordinated and willful doesn't help. It's basically a game that says "well, the world is totally ****ed, you have no allies, no plan, and basically no chance. But you have been blessed with a lot of power and the will to use it. Are you going to try and fix it?"

EDIT:


Mechanically, if I have an idea what I want my character to be like, I can create a character in ten minutes, tops, including writing things down. How is that in any way not fast?

EDIT: For reference, Mutants & Masterminds is my favorite system and the one I am most familiar with, yet creating a character can take upwards of thirty minutes for me, not including writing things down.

And yet I can stat an NPC in M&M in my head in like fifty seconds, three minutes more for writing it down (a PC takes a bit more because I like numbercrunching and mulling over the details when I'm being a player). Just painting the dots, much less actually thinking what I'll pick and what I won't, in a WW-style sheet takes longer than thinking a whole character in most systems for me. And making a character in Exalted, with its bajillion weirdly-named Charms that you need to go and check for the exact mechanics (Stun is easy to remember - one-word name, and "touch attack against Fort or be stunned" is all the mechanical bits you need. For something like, say, Courtier's Eye Technique, chances that you need to reread it every now and then to even remember what it does are high), it's not much unlike making a middle-level Wizard in D&D. Aka, a lot of double-checking you have the specifics right unless you have the spell compendiums (aka charmlists) completely memorized.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-02, 11:11 AM
-You like FAST character creation.

Mechanically, if I have an idea what I want my character to be like, I can create a character in ten minutes, tops, including writing things down. How is that in any way not fast?

EDIT: For reference, Mutants & Masterminds is my favorite system and the one I am most familiar with, yet creating a character can take upwards of thirty minutes for me, not including writing things down.

Dairun Cates
2010-07-02, 11:20 AM
Mechanically, if I have an idea what I want my character to be like, I can create a character in ten minutes, tops, including writing things down. How is that in any way not fast?

How long have you been playing, how many books do you own, and how much are you actually trying to make a powerful character? I know someone that has almost all of the books, can actually NAME most of the charms and their effects off the top of his head from each of them, knows what all the artifacts do, and literally knows the system like the back of his hand.

It still takes him about 2-3 hours to make a character, plus probably another handful of hours throughout the week for tweaking if he feels like being really powerful.

10 minutes for character creation is nowhere NEAR average. We've tried to start 3 campaigns in this system and each has required a full planning session to just get the bare bones structure of a character planned down.

The problem really is optimization. If one person does even a LITTLE searching to make their character more powerful, everyone has to or said character tends to steamroll over the importance of the other characters. So, if everyone in your group does it really fast, you can get it down to 10 minutes after you're really familiar with the system, but if one person starts the arms race, everyone's probably going to have to step up a bit.

And EDIT: For the record, I can make a villain in Mutants and Masterminds with a template in about 5 minutes. Ran an entire campaign with them. Famliarity plays a huge role, but there are systems that are bogged down in character creation for MOST players. This does not make them bad, but it's something that needs to be addressed. Some people love GURPS, while other people can't stand character creation for the sheer volume of reading and rules. It's all preference.

But honestly, if you can't deal with spending upwards of 4-6 hours on your first exalted character, you should probably look elsewhere.

Lapak
2010-07-02, 11:31 AM
And since I really do feel pretty strongly about it, I'll expand on what I said at the end of my post above: I don't think Exalted works, mechanically. It's got some flat-out problems with design that require a significant amount of work to get around. Character creation issues; the fact that the combat mechanics work such that combatants often go from 'untouched' to 'splattered,' a double-handful of broken Charms; enough per-action steps and modifiers in the conflict-resolution mechanic to make physical or social combat daunting to new players; I have a bunch of problems with the system.

But the setting? The setting and basic premise of the system is fine. Interesting background and allows for heroic play in a number of ways.

EDIT: This is not to say that it can't be made to work, and that any given group can't become familiar with the system and introduce a set of assumptions and rulings that smooth things out. I'm just saying that it essentially requires both a learning curve and some pretty hefty player/referee agreements about playstyle and is tough to run straight as-is.

Leeham
2010-07-02, 11:31 AM
Thanks for all the info, I think I'm going to give it a try now. This has been severely helpful, thanks for all your replies.

Kylarra
2010-07-02, 12:10 PM
I'm not at my home computer so I don't have the link, but you can probably find it if you quicksearch my posthistory, however, Epsilon's NPC system has worked wonders for quickbuilding antagonists for my players, all I really need to do is pick a difficulty level or a base, a few iconic charms, choose gear and name them.

I guess tangentially related, I usually take about an hour to build my own characters in Exalted, and it took us a full session to make them for people new to Exalted, not counting the session we spent explaining the setting and mechanics because that's not fair. Comparatively it takes me less time to burn through a 4e character thanks to the builder, but significantly more time for a 3.X character thanks to plethora of sources to cross check.

Reynard
2010-07-02, 12:37 PM
How long have you been playing, how many books do you own, and how much are you actually trying to make a powerful character? I know someone that has almost all of the books, can actually NAME most of the charms and their effects off the top of his head from each of them, knows what all the artifacts do, and literally knows the system like the back of his hand.

<snip>

But honestly, if you can't deal with spending upwards of 4-6 hours on your first exalted character, you should probably look elsewhere.

Yeah, not really. It took me 3+ hours to stat my first ever D&D 3.5 character. The fact that some classes/builds are flat-out better then everything else, that half the feats and classes seem to be (sometimes actually are) jokes or traps, that you have to careful in choosing the right spells to start with if you play a caster, made it a tedious affair.

My first Exalted character took under an hour and a half to stat up. Unless you're a complete fool and focus all your charms and BP on, for example, Ride, most builds will be completely workable. I was then able to spend all the time I saved on the backstory, personality, and motivation of the character. It was also a lot more fun.

And another thing, in Exalted, there is no equivalent to the Wizard 20.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-02, 12:48 PM
And another thing, in Exalted, there is no equivalent to the Wizard 20.

Green Sun Prince who favours Occult with two sorcery initiation charms bought three times and that Ebon Dragon charm that turns his sorcery initiation charms into necromancy initiation charms?

Sidereal with Sidereal Martial Arts?

Eclipse(/Moonshadow/Fiend) with stupid-powerful Spirit charms?

Reynard
2010-07-02, 12:56 PM
There will always be another character who is capable of taking them down, though. They might be more powerful then most, but they aren't so gamebreakingly ahead of everybody else as Wizard can get in D&D.

Drascin
2010-07-02, 01:06 PM
There will always be another character who is capable of taking them down, though. They might be more powerful then most, but they aren't so gamebreakingly ahead of everybody else as Wizard can get in D&D.

But there are those that can take Wizard 20 too. Namely, Cleric 20, or Artificer 20, or Druid 20 :smallwink:.

But really, fact is, Exalted doesn't even try to be balanced, or at least it's balanced only on the "everyone can die anyway, even if they can upturn a continent" paradigm. Which isn't really all that good a balancing paradigm, because, you know, ideally killing your players to make a point is not the best of situations :smalltongue:. But really, Exalted never tried for balance, I think.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-02, 01:29 PM
How long have you been playing, how many books do you own, and how much are you actually trying to make a powerful character?

For about two years; all the books published on RPGNow.com, and Lords of Creation; very much so, in fact, that I'm often accused of powergaming Exalted. It took me two minutes to come up with a combo that has a Parry DV of 19, without any Charms. Given some six hours and Charms, I could probably get it much higher, and still have a character that is good at offense and non-combat related pursuits. If given XP, I will probably make a character more efficiently than most other people I know with the same concept (which is really a huge flaw of Exalted in that it has dozens of mechanical landmines littered across the book).

Then again, I don't know how high your group goes, but among the people I know, I'm the third most powergaming Exalted player I can think of.

The Tygre
2010-07-02, 01:34 PM
Man, Exalted's not about being balanced. Exalted's about being awesome. It's about wielding the drill that will pierce the Heavens and initiating Third Impact. It's about being able to hide in the space between words and make a mech made out of fire on the fly. It's about becoming a monster so horrible or a hero so wonderful that reality has to step aside because you take large steps. And that's just your starting character.

JeenLeen
2010-07-02, 01:35 PM
A setting question: are Immaculate monks a certain group of Terrestial Exalted? I haven't been clear on exactly what they are.

Reynard
2010-07-02, 01:37 PM
Immaculate Monks know the Immaculate martial arts. Anyone at all can become one, but it's simplest for the Dragonblooded.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-02, 01:39 PM
It's also specifically a power-up for Dragon-Blooded (and mortals). Everyone else of any importance can already learn Celestial Martial Arts (and, by extension, five of the six Immaculate styles).

The other Immaculate style is a Terrestrial style, which any Dragon-Blooded could conceivably learn without being an Immaculate.

Teln
2010-07-02, 01:41 PM
The hard part about getting Immaculate Martial Arts is that the Immaculate Order considers all non-Terrestrial Exalted to be demons, and most people willing to teach the IMAs are part of the Order. That said, there are exceptions.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-02, 01:41 PM
Immaculate Monks know the Immaculate martial arts. Anyone at all can become one, but it's simplest for the Dragonblooded.

Umm, no. Mortals can also become Immaculate monks. Non-enlightened mortals cannot learn supernatural martial arts at all, while enlightened mortals are only taught Five-Dragon Style, which is a secular martial art. Immaculate monks are the priests of the Immaculate Philosophy, people who adhere to a set of beliefs and rules in order to raise their standing on the coils of resurrection, in hopes of eventually attaining oneness with the Elemental Dragons.

Dairun Cates
2010-07-02, 02:26 PM
Man, Exalted's not about being balanced. Exalted's about being awesome. It's about wielding the drill that will pierce the Heavens and initiating Third Impact. It's about being able to hide in the space between words and make a mech made out of fire on the fly. It's about becoming a monster so horrible or a hero so wonderful that reality has to step aside because you take large steps. And that's just your starting character.

Which was my entire point. Exalted, like all things has problems and advantages. It just takes it to a ridiculous level. If you can get past the things on the list, you'll like it, otherwise, you won't.


For about two years; all the books published on RPGNow.com, and Lords of Creation; very much so, in fact, that I'm often accused of powergaming Exalted. It took me two minutes to come up with a combo that has a Parry DV of 19, without any Charms. Given some six hours and Charms, I could probably get it much higher, and still have a character that is good at offense and non-combat related pursuits. If given XP, I will probably make a character more efficiently than most other people I know with the same concept (which is really a huge flaw of Exalted in that it has dozens of mechanical landmines littered across the book).

Then again, I don't know how high your group goes, but among the people I know, I'm the third most powergaming Exalted player I can think of.

That's just the thing. Once SOMEONE in the group gets the idea to spend that 6 hours, the GM either has to slap them or the entire group has to go along with it. Exalted tends to encourage in its supplements the "6 hours of searching" behavior though.

Believe me, I can argue theory all night on this, but I'm just going to say that while results will vary, a lot of players will often take a while and that's something you'll have to potentially deal with. Never Exalted wasn't the only one. This is a typical problem with MOST ability or point buy based systems. There's a lot to go through. Hell, even my own system I'm working on can get a bit crazy for some people and I tried to stress simplicity.



And another thing, in Exalted, there is no equivalent to the Wizard 20.

Not going to spend too much time here since it's been covered, but...

Exalted DEFINITELY has its share of horrendously over-powered game-ending builds. GMs of the system definitely should look at characters with a fine-tooth comb before approving something.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-02, 02:34 PM
If you can get past the things on the list, you'll like it, otherwise, you won't.

Well, those are hardly a good representative of the flaws of Exalted in my experience. Except for the horribly unbalanced part. That is pretty much true. You also forgot the schizophrenic mechanics and setting details due to the editor doing his job on drugs, the developer apparently not communicating his desires with the writers, who hardly communicate with each other.

Then again, I love Exalted, but it is the single most flawed game I've ever played. I aim to play FATAL one day to remove it from that position.

Dairun Cates
2010-07-02, 02:43 PM
Well, those are hardly a good representative of the flaws of Exalted in my experience. Except for the horribly unbalanced part. That is pretty much true. You also forgot the schizophrenic mechanics and setting details due to the editor doing his job on drugs, the developer apparently not communicating his desires with the writers, who hardly communicate with each other.

Then again, I love Exalted, but it is the single most flawed game I've ever played. I aim to play FATAL one day to remove it from that position.

Well, I certainly could've been more critical, but I was aiming on the side of being slightly impartial and cautious. Actually, one of my biggest PERSONAL gripes with the system is the great curse combined with virtues. It's kind of a cool idea, but mechanically, it encourages players of Solars to either be jerks or occasionally just start crying in the middle of combat.

I guess my point was that it's a VERY flawed system, but you'll enjoy it if you get past the flaws. I don't think we'll get a PERFECT agreement on what those flaws are.

Kylarra
2010-07-02, 02:45 PM
Exalted DEFINITELY has its share of horrendously over-powered game-ending builds. GMs of the system definitely should look at characters with a fine-tooth comb before approving something.Thankfully, I'm the only one in the group who would look for things like that, and well, I'm the ST, so no issues there. :smallbiggrin:

Actually, I worked with pretty much every one of my players to keep things within a certain range of capabilities so no one was left too far out of either social or physical interactions.


Then again, I love Exalted, but it is the single most flawed game I've ever played. I aim to play FATAL one day to remove it from that position.In my experience, Scion tends to break slightly more in the higher tiers, although that's really just an aggravation of the same base system, so eh.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-02, 02:49 PM
In my experience, Scion tends to break slightly more in the higher tiers, although that's really just an aggravation of the same base system, so eh.

I hear it's mostly the fault of Epic Attributes.

Kylarra
2010-07-02, 02:51 PM
I hear it's mostly the fault of Epic Attributes.Yeah mostly. A few specific boons also contribute to the problem, but they're not as big an issue.

Morty
2010-07-02, 03:24 PM
People keep saying stuff about Exalted that is supposed to be good, but I can't imagine myself enjoying it. I'm not saying it's a bad system, it just seems that its core assumptions are a complete polar opposite of what I appreciate in tabletop gaming.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-02, 03:25 PM
People keep saying stuff about Exalted that are supposed to be good, but I can't imagine myself enjoying it. I'm not saying it's a bad system, it just seems that its core assumptions are a complete polar opposite of what I appreciate in tabletop gaming.

You mean people have personal preferences?

You don't say.

Morty
2010-07-02, 03:26 PM
You mean people have personal preferences?

You don't say.

Well, yeah. And I was voicing mine. Maybe I didn't word it very well.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-02, 03:28 PM
People keep saying stuff about Exalted that is supposed to be good, but I can't imagine myself enjoying it. I'm not saying it's a bad system, it just seems that its core assumptions are a complete polar opposite of what I appreciate in tabletop gaming.

Well, if there is anything Exalted is great at, it's polarize players. Two Exalted players who like the game equally might have completely different expectations of what the game is like.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-02, 03:29 PM
Well, yeah. And I was voicing mine. Maybe I didn't word it very well.

*pats*

Pay me no mind. :smallwink:

Morty
2010-07-02, 03:36 PM
Well, if there is anything Exalted is great at, it's polarize players. Two Exalted players who like the game equally might have completely different expectations of what the game is like.

You mean that one will expect a superheroic game in which they're biting moutains in half for fun and the other one will expect a Vampire: The Masquerade game with much greater power level?

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-02, 03:40 PM
You mean that one will expect a superheroic game in which they're biting moutains in half for fun and the other one will expect a Vampire: The Masquerade game with much greater power level?

Pretty much, though with the power level slightly lowered down from what you suggest.

It doesn't help that the mechanics and setting of the game are highly schizophrenic.

Kylarra
2010-07-02, 04:36 PM
People keep saying stuff about Exalted that is supposed to be good, but I can't imagine myself enjoying it. I'm not saying it's a bad system, it just seems that its core assumptions are a complete polar opposite of what I appreciate in tabletop gaming.Which is ... fine? :smalltongue: I'm not sure what you're looking for a response to here. People approach gaming for different reasons and people enjoy different aspects of gaming. What draws one person to a game may very well be the same thing that repulses another. Much like many systems, Exalted lends itself to a variety of different campaign foci, so as TRD said, two people that like Exalted can have vastly different experiences and reasons for enjoyment.

Terazul
2010-07-02, 09:53 PM
One thing I can say for people who get turned off by the "power level cranked to 11" thing of Exalted; Honestly, it's not as exaggerated as we make it out to be. At least not in normal/early play. At one point on the WW forums, a bunch of posters were trying to figure out if you Perfect Block'd a house thrown at you, would it protect other people around you from the debris. The thread went on for a few pages until a mod had to come in and remind everyone that it's actually really difficult to throw a house at someone (It's like... 8-9 dots of strength?), and there were probably better things that could be discussed. There's alot of wacky, crazy stuff, but it takes awhile/alot of effort/special tricks to get there. Sure a Sidereal can punch you into a duck. If they have the proper SMA, which usually doesn't come full swing until around Essence 5 or 6 (sometimes 4).

We say you're more powerful than 99% of Creation, but it's really more, "powerful than all non-heroic mortals". You get to start off a little higher on the totem pole, but dear sweet Malpheas there are tons of things more powerful than you.

That's not to say you don't do --ridiculous-- things, like being SO charismatic and awesome that you suddenly seem invulnerable (I love DB Presence) or running along and moving a city with you. It's just... not ALL the time.

ZeroNumerous
2010-07-02, 10:48 PM
(It's like... 8-9 dots of strength?)

Even with Strength 10+Athletics 10 you're 'only' looking at a hippo. Then again: There are Lunar charms that make it possible to lift a house fairly easily.

EDIT:


That's not to say you don't do --ridiculous-- things, like being SO charismatic and awesome that you suddenly seem invulnerable (I love DB Presence) or running along and moving a city with you. It's just... not ALL the time.

Eh... There are some stuff that's head-scratching at low Essence as well. Being so terrifying that you cause physical harm to those who try to attack you(via Abyssal Presence charms) for example.

The Demented One
2010-07-02, 11:50 PM
But really, fact is, Exalted doesn't even try to be balanced, or at least it's balanced only on the "everyone can die anyway, even if they can upturn a continent" paradigm. Which isn't really all that good a balancing paradigm, because, you know, ideally killing your players to make a point is not the best of situations :smalltongue:. But really, Exalted never tried for balance, I think.
I...don't think you understand the system of Exalted very well. There is a very, very intricate balance of effects and between different types of Exalt. Now, some books really don't handle the balance well (Scroll of the Monk, Dreams of the First Age), but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

Kyeudo
2010-07-03, 02:34 AM
How long have you been playing, how many books do you own, and how much are you actually trying to make a powerful character? I know someone that has almost all of the books, can actually NAME most of the charms and their effects off the top of his head from each of them, knows what all the artifacts do, and literally knows the system like the back of his hand.

It still takes him about 2-3 hours to make a character, plus probably another handful of hours throughout the week for tweaking if he feels like being really powerful.

10 minutes for character creation is nowhere NEAR average. We've tried to start 3 campaigns in this system and each has required a full planning session to just get the bare bones structure of a character planned down.

The problem really is optimization. If one person does even a LITTLE searching to make their character more powerful, everyone has to or said character tends to steamroll over the importance of the other characters. So, if everyone in your group does it really fast, you can get it down to 10 minutes after you're really familiar with the system, but if one person starts the arms race, everyone's probably going to have to step up a bit.

And EDIT: For the record, I can make a villain in Mutants and Masterminds with a template in about 5 minutes. Ran an entire campaign with them. Famliarity plays a huge role, but there are systems that are bogged down in character creation for MOST players. This does not make them bad, but it's something that needs to be addressed. Some people love GURPS, while other people can't stand character creation for the sheer volume of reading and rules. It's all preference.

But honestly, if you can't deal with spending upwards of 4-6 hours on your first exalted character, you should probably look elsewhere.

What system are you playing? That does NOT sound like Exalted at all. Seriously, to optimize a character I have to check a maximum of 4 books for a Solar and 5 for other Exalt types, maybe one more if I'm making a sorcerer. Now, I am missing one or two books, but the thing with Exalted is 90% of what you need for any given character is in the book for that Exalt type and the remaining 10% is usually in the Core book.

If you feel like it, you can grab some fairly interesting toys from Wonders of the Lost Age and Oaedenol's Codex or some spells from the White or Black Treatise, but most of those are merely fun toys. The workhorse items are in the Core book. If you want to throw a few Merits and Flaws on, you can get munchkiny, but then the Storyteller can really get some fun out of the Enemy flaw you took for those 5 extra bonus points (fun as seen from Malfeas's viewpoint).

Most of my characters are done and on the sheet in less than an hour, with the basics of their backstory allready sketched in. Picking Charms is about the hardest thing in the whole process and that gets fast once you grasp Exalted's "Exactly What It Says On Tin" naming convention.

Jerthanis
2010-07-03, 04:24 AM
One thing I can say for people who get turned off by the "power level cranked to 11" thing of Exalted; Honestly, it's not as exaggerated as we make it out to be.

Yeah, this is really true. The kinds of epic stuff you're doing is more along the lines of "Take down an army armed only with the jawbone of a donkey" than "Throwing mountains and punching causality". While you could, in theory, build a character that throws mountains or punches causality, it would be after a fair deal of play and involve very specific character development paths.

I think people tend to get carried away with Exalted. Sometimes the most epic things about stories are the most humble. Surfing down the collapsing body of a lovecraftian old one while playing two simultaneous rock guitar solos is only awesome if it means something to the characters, if people are making choices, growing, and resolving conflicts. In that way, a friend from before your exaltation selling you out to the wyld hunt, partly out of jealousy is more epic than the ensuing kung-fu duel with the immaculates, no matter how grandiose description of the blocks, dodges and collateral damage becomes.

Then again, I think I might run Exalted grittier than most people do. For me, one of the dramatic high points of one campaign was when a drought hit and a third of a PC's nation died of starvation. That was probably the most epic it got by my own definition. There was a discussion with the awakened consciousness of Autochthon which appeared as a face out of the coiled webs of the Core, a battle with the entire city of Paragon, its buildings animated by a cruel intelligence to try and crush the PCs between its walls or with essence lasers like the end of Dark City, and a scene where the PCs battled an Akuma inside the main lava tube of a volcano which was in the middle of erupting, hopping from rock to rock amidst the fountain of lava and I still say the most epic thing in that whole game was a completely mundane drought.

Oh yeah: And the system is the worst system I have ever loved. It is flawed front to back and nothing can ever salvage it, only make it playable... barely. Still, I have trouble imagining it in any other system and the setting is worth it... so incredibly worth it.

Oslecamo
2010-07-03, 06:15 AM
Then again, I think I might run Exalted grittier than most people do. For me, one of the dramatic high points of one campaign was when a drought hit and a third of a PC's nation died of starvation. That was probably the most epic it got by my own definition.

Ok, that's something I've seen mentioned several times from other Exalted players and I definetely don't understand. So you're capable of defeating armies with the jawbone of a donkey, but you can't dig up a well? You can't go and punch the god of rain or whatever's causing the drought untill it ends? Isn't there a charm to get water? Weren't exalted characters suposed to be way above such "petty" obstacles like the whims of nature and be busy fighting empires and cosmical problems?:smallconfused:

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-03, 06:15 AM
Ok, that's something I've seen mentioned several times from other Exalted players and I definetely don't understand. So you're capable of defeating armies with the jawbone of a donkey, but you can't dig up a well? You can't go and punch the god of rain or whatever's causing the drought untill it ends? Isn't there a charm to get water? Weren't exalted characters suposed to be way above such "petty" obstacles like the whims of nature and be busy fighting empires and cosmical problems?:smallconfused:

Simplest (coolest) solution: learn Water Dragon Style.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-03, 06:33 AM
Weren't exalted characters suposed to be way above such "petty" obstacles like the whims of nature and be busy fighting empires and cosmical problems?:smallconfused:

No, not really. Exalts are very good at what they do. They aren't capable of doing everything. As written, there is no Solar Charm that can help against, for example, the Great Contagion. It is possible a Solar could figure out a way to mitigate or even cure it, but they weren't there when the Great Contagion hit. At that point, they were overthrown by what are essentially overglorified swords and bows centuries ago.

And while the world of Exalted is very large, the cosmos of it is effectively very, very small. There are two worlds slightly larger than our own, a hellish world that is made of a lot of demons and therefore has very little to discover in terms of landscape, and a lot of chaos outside that is essentially unsurvivable by all but the Celestial Exaltations, and even then will be very taxing.

The Solar Deliberative was made up of 700 Celestial Exalts, most of them elder, and millions of Terrestrial Exalts, and still the world was far from perfect. Exalts are humans given great power and no change in perspective, not omnipotent omniscient beings. As such, when they succeed is usually as epic as when they fail. And the setting is set up to make them fail a lot.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-03, 06:35 AM
A circle of Solars should still be able to solve a petty thing like a drought that only killed a third of a country.

Drascin
2010-07-03, 07:04 AM
Ok, that's something I've seen mentioned several times from other Exalted players and I definetely don't understand. So you're capable of defeating armies with the jawbone of a donkey, but you can't dig up a well? You can't go and punch the god of rain or whatever's causing the drought untill it ends? Isn't there a charm to get water? Weren't exalted characters suposed to be way above such "petty" obstacles like the whims of nature and be busy fighting empires and cosmical problems?:smallconfused:

Well, if it's extensive enough to cause the death of a nation, a few wells here and there probably wouldn't help much, especially given that droughts of such magnitude generally mean there's people in Heaven who hate the country's guts a lot and so the chance that even if you got your wells something else would go wrong is not trivial.

The "go and beat sense into the god of rain until he stops being a prick" thing, on the other hand, does sound plenty plausible. I imagine there were circumstances preventing the PCs form finding said god in time, or something, though.

Terraoblivion
2010-07-03, 07:09 AM
Circumstances such as it probably being done through the bureaucratic functions of the Department of Nature in Yu-Shan, meaning that just reaching the decision makers would be hard. Then comes the problem of tracking down whose idea the order for a drought in that specific country was. Certainly something that has the potential for an epic story, but not something you just do without any effort unless you are quite high essence.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-03, 07:09 AM
The "go and beat sense into the god of rain until he stops being a prick" thing, on the other hand, does sound plenty plausible. I imagine there were circumstances preventing the PCs form finding said god in time, or something, though.

It might also be because the spirit of rains of the area is dead, the Bureau of Seasons is too busy backstabbing each other to appoint a replacement and a Deathlord has killed all potential spirits in the area's Terrestrial courts as a prelude to bringing an army of Neverborn worshipers and his more powerful and better equipped Abyssals into the region to turn it into a shadowland.

Things are rarely as simple as a single spirit sleeping on the job in Creation.

Jerthanis
2010-07-03, 07:17 AM
Ok, that's something I've seen mentioned several times from other Exalted players and I definetely don't understand. So you're capable of defeating armies with the jawbone of a donkey, but you can't dig up a well? You can't go and punch the god of rain or whatever's causing the drought untill it ends? Isn't there a charm to get water? Weren't exalted characters suposed to be way above such "petty" obstacles like the whims of nature and be busy fighting empires and cosmical problems?:smallconfused:

Well... no matter how strong you are, you can never squeeze water from a stone. Well... okay, bad example, because there is a sorcery spell to squeeze water from stones specifically in Exalted.

But the idea behind that saying is there. You may be mighty, but the application of that might must be tempered and directed with wisdom to be effective. He wasn't playing a perfect character, that character had human flaws.

Another big theme of Exalted is that your actions have consequences, and his actions in this case led to starvation. You may be able to go on a journey to find the god of rain and punch all the way up the chain to demand perfect weather over a locale, but then nearby kingdoms may have suffered a drought of twice the intensity as a consequence. Then those nations become unstable places of refuge for thieves and raiders and they prey on your trade, raid your outskirts and begin smuggling in drugs produced by demons or fair folk that subvert or decimate your population. You could work on rooting out these criminals and not be vigilant enough to notice the Deathlord plot against the nation... the chain of events never ceases from just pulling it.

And Exalts are still human, they have to shave every day or two, struggle in the outhouse after eating the Chiaroscuro special, and put their pants on one leg at a time. They're not above "petty" problems because what is and isn't petty is determined by what the character values and what threatens it, not the most dangerous adversary in the immediate area. Also, no Solar has infinite experience points, so while you could do specific things to solve specific problems, eventually the chain of events will lead to a situation you won't have a bat-spray for.

Drascin
2010-07-03, 07:34 AM
Circumstances such as it probably being done through the bureaucratic functions of the Department of Nature in Yu-Shan, meaning that just reaching the decision makers would be hard. Then comes the problem of tracking down whose idea the order for a drought in that specific country was. Certainly something that has the potential for an epic story, but not something you just do without any effort unless you are quite high essence.

Indeed, that kind of thing was exactly what I was thinking about when I said "circumstances". Godly bureaucracy is a worse enemy than any Behemoth when it comes to stories like this. The fact that Bronze Sidereals will likely want to gank your posterior as soon as you reveal yourself by getting into said bureaucracy, and many will be working against you with pen and form just out of sheer spite is also is unlikely to help :smalltongue:.

Fouredged Sword
2010-07-03, 09:43 AM
If you want to see a system that breaks at high level, just look at mages. They STOP GIVING RULES!!!

They stop telling you what you can do with your powers after 5 dots! No joke. There is a clearly writen system for getting there, just no way of actualy useing those powers without a set of agreements with the DM him or her self, becuse there are NO RULES!

Seriously, who's idea was that?

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-03, 09:48 AM
If you want to see a system that breaks at high level, just look at mages. They STOP GIVING RULES!!!

They stop telling you what you can do with your powers after 5 dots!

They also have no rules on how to get those 5 dots. In fact, there is literally no way for a player to get 5 dots in a supernatural power tree in classic World of Darkness without ST fiat.

Action Zero
2010-07-03, 10:09 AM
put their pants on one leg at a time

Not if they do a stunt where they throw their pants into the air in such a way that they open up, then do a flying dropkick into the pant legs.

Terazul
2010-07-03, 10:13 AM
Not if they do a stunt where they throw their pants into the air in such a way that they open up, then do a flying dropkick into the pant legs.

Dex+Athletics! Don't botch.

Fouredged Sword
2010-07-03, 10:27 AM
nWoD, not old. In new world of darkness it just takes a really high amount of EXP to do it. There is even a nameing pattern for charcaters who have over 5 in MORE THAN ONE POWER Then things get really crazy, becuse mixing powers wasn't bad enough.

Life and Spirit 6 or 7, somewhere areound there you have spontaniously generated werewolves serving your every whim. Things get silly.

Oslecamo
2010-07-03, 10:42 AM
Another big theme of Exalted is that your actions have consequences, and his actions in this case led to starvation. You may be able to go on a journey to find the god of rain and punch all the way up the chain to demand perfect weather over a locale, but then nearby kingdoms may have suffered a drought of twice the intensity as a consequence. Then those nations become unstable places of refuge for thieves and raiders and they prey on your trade, raid your outskirts and begin smuggling in drugs produced by demons or fair folk that subvert or decimate your population. You could work on rooting out these criminals and not be vigilant enough to notice the Deathlord plot against the nation... the chain of events never ceases from just pulling it.

Well, to be honest, that's more work of the DM than of the system unless Exalted has some tables for that on the core book that I missed or on some of the splatbooks that I don't own.

I'll give it tough that Exalted has a quite original and interesting seting where you've got all those complex chains of bureaucracy run by hordes of gods and just like said in the begginning of the core book, it's probably the main appeal of the game.

On the other hand, starting the book by insulting the reader by calling him/her a stunted, whitered being is somewhat counter-productive.:smallannoyed:

Kylarra
2010-07-03, 10:49 AM
Ok, that's something I've seen mentioned several times from other Exalted players and I definetely don't understand. So you're capable of defeating armies with the jawbone of a donkey, but you can't dig up a well? You can't go and punch the god of rain or whatever's causing the drought untill it ends? Isn't there a charm to get water? Weren't exalted characters suposed to be way above such "petty" obstacles like the whims of nature and be busy fighting empires and cosmical problems?:smallconfused:I find it kind of odd that you find it it difficult to understand that different people can have different experiences with the same system.:smallconfused:

Terraoblivion
2010-07-03, 11:00 AM
On the other hand, starting the book by insulting the reader by calling him/her a stunted, whitered being is somewhat counter-productive.:smallannoyed:

May i ask you to explain where it says that? Opening the Exalted corebook for second edition it starts with an honestly fairly lame comic about the iconic circle of Solars ending the flood that has hit a small village. It then goes on to the usual legal writing you get in the beginning of all books, then a table of contents and another comic before the actual writing starts. This begins with a quick listing of some sources and then a few potshots at other systems and praise of the setting of Exalted, which is pretty arrogant, but says nothing about the reader. Then it goes to the usual "what is roleplaying" section.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-03, 11:03 AM
I think it's in the back cover of the First Edition, how our world is the future of Exalted and how far it has fallen since those days. Back then, Exalted was supposed to be the past of the World of Darkness, but I think they did away with that angle in Second Edition.

EDIT: Actually, it's in the back cover of the Second Edition. Weird.

Oslecamo
2010-07-03, 11:04 AM
I find it kind of odd that you find it it difficult to understand that different people can have different experiences with the same system.:smallconfused:

Not diferent experiences. One particular experience shared by diferent people that happens to go directly against the philosophy of the system. The Exalted core book says that solars are about doing "anything they want" and breaking the landscape itself changing creation (all on pg.271), and then their biggest problem is a minor natural hazard?

Of course, then it turns up the drought isn't the actual problem, but a combination of the corrupt innefecient gods controling the rain and evil beings behind the shaddow pulling all kind of strings to screw you, wich fits with the philosophy of Exalted.

Terraoblivion:Check out the back of the 2nd edition core book, where the code bar and price are. There should be a couple paragraphs of text there with that particular quote is.

Terraoblivion
2010-07-03, 11:14 AM
They form nations, break the landscape
and change Creation for good or ill.

You mean this, oslecamo? In that case i would love if you could explain where it says it was easy, trivial or was done solely using your personal abilities, with no need to involve others? Because really ordinary humans do all those things and drought can still cause us problems, even today.

Kylarra
2010-07-03, 11:14 AM
Not diferent experiences. One particular experience shared by diferent people that happens to go directly against the philosophy of the system. The Exalted core book says that solars are about doing "anything they want" and breaking the landscape itself changing creation (all on pg.271), and then their biggest problem is a minor natural hazard?I think you mean one particular experience stated by one person, unless you'd care to point out where multiple people stated that this happened to them? You could be, of course, speaking for Jerthanis' group when you say shared by different people, but then that's a sort of phrasing that is deliberately misleading.

Multiple people did say how circumstances could have been arranged to make things more complicated than the initial statement seemed, which you yourself have stated was in-line with the norm, so I'm not sure what you're trying to prove with biting rhetoric like that.

Of course, then it turns up the drought isn't the actual problem, but a combination of the corrupt innefecient gods controling the rain and evil beings behind the shaddow pulling all kind of strings to screw you, wich fits with the philosophy of Exalted.


edit: I noticed you left out the caveat of "limited [only] by their lack of experience, allies, and resources" when saying that the book states "solars can do anything." Additionally, Solar charms are about magnifying human potential, so yes they can break landscape and form nations. Making water is something not so available without sorcery, which is easily limitable by the ST in terms of which spells they allow in their game.

Reynard
2010-07-03, 11:23 AM
Terraoblivion:Check out the back of the 2nd edition core book, where the code bar and price are. There should be a couple paragraphs of text there with that particular quote is.

... And how exactly does it single out the players? It says 'a time before the souls of men become the stunted, withered things they are today.', and appears to be little more than a bit of fluff. So, you know, treat it like that, rather then getting insulted over nothing.


Close your mind to their
deception. The time before our
time was not a time of senseless
natural struggle and reptilian
rage, but a time of myth and
sorcery. It was a time of legend,
when heroes walked Creation
and wielded the very power of
the gods. It was a time before
the world was bent, a time
before the magic of Creation
lessened, a time before the souls
of men became the stunted,
withered things they are today.

Oslecamo
2010-07-03, 11:25 AM
You mean this, oslecamo? In that case i would love if you could explain where it says it was easy, trivial or was done solely using your personal abilities, with no need to involve others? Because really ordinary humans do all those things and drought can still cause us problems, even today.

Well, because if you have trouble dealing with a simple drought, what will you do when your oponents make pure acid rain fall completely ruinining the land or something else even less natural and that you can't directly beat to death with a donkey's jawbone? Because I tought we were talking about reality-manipulating oponents able to unleash things much worst than simple droughts here.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-03, 11:27 AM
...which is easily limitable by the ST in terms of which spells they allow in their game.

I may be totally off here, but doesn't the Salinan Working allow you to learn any sorcery spell without a tutor? Or does it only allow you to learn sorcery initiation Charms?

Terraoblivion
2010-07-03, 11:31 AM
The Salinan working allows anybody to be initiated into sorcery without a teacher. Individual spells either have to be learned from a source or developed on your own, the specific ones that exist aren't encoded into the fabric of reality by the working.

Kylarra
2010-07-03, 11:32 AM
I may be totally off here, but doesn't the Salinan Working allow you to learn any sorcery spell without a tutor? Or does it only allow you to learn sorcery initiation Charms?Initiation only. Spells still require text or years of research, at least according to the exp table, and my games generally don't have years of downtime to do that.


Well, because if you have trouble dealing with a simple drought, what will you do when your oponents make pure acid rain fall completely ruinining the land or something else even less natural and that you can't directly beat to death with a donkey's jawbone? Because I tought we were talking about reality-manipulating oponents able to unleash things much worst than simple droughts here.Various circle countermagics generally.

Alternatively, the age-old maxim that it's far easier to destroy than to rebuild does come into play.

AmberVael
2010-07-03, 11:39 AM
I'm not sure what's up with this whole "Exalted can't solve a drought" thing. I could make a starting character that could at least make a very good effort at solving a drought.

Thaumaturgy, Weather Working. Three XP to get all three procedures the discipline offers (or one bonus point). But you really only need the last one anyway.
Then toss on Celestial Refinement Techniques from Hundredfold Facets of Enlightenment, and suddenly, you can change the weather in a decent area for a week with one day's work.

Granted, Hundredfold Facets of Enlightenment is homebrew, but even before that there was a technique (and a cheap and relatively simple technique at that- Thaumaturgy? That's stuff non-exalted can do) to directly combat a drought. An Exalted with the appropriate skills would have no problem at all with this sort of thing. And once you're powerful enough, I imagine you wouldn't even need to have gotten specialized skills, as something in your arsenal could be twisted to that purpose.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-03, 11:40 AM
The Salinan Working does make sure spells are never lost if the last remaining sorcerer who knows it dies, however.

But you still need months of study to learn the 'saved' spells. If you can find them.

Kylarra
2010-07-03, 11:47 AM
I'm not sure what's up with this whole "Exalted can't solve a drought" thing. I could make a starting character that could at least make a very good effort at solving a drought.

Thaumaturgy, Weather Working. Three XP to get all three procedures the discipline offers (or one bonus point). But you really only need the last one anyway.
Then toss on Celestial Refinement Techniques from Hundredfold Facets of Enlightenment, and suddenly, you can change the weather in a decent area for a week with one day's work.

Granted, Hundredfold Facets of Enlightenment is homebrew, but even before that there was a technique (and a cheap and relatively simple technique at that- Thaumaturgy? That's stuff non-exalted can do) to directly combat a drought. An Exalted with the appropriate skills would have no problem at all with this sort of thing. And once you're powerful enough, I imagine you wouldn't even need to have gotten specialized skills, as something in your arsenal could be twisted to that purpose.
TBH, I forget Thaumaturgy exists most of the time. :smallredface:

Anyway, I don't necessarily think that Exalted shouldn't be able to do things about a drought in a vacuum, but all I was saying is that it's perfectly plausible in a game that was self-described as potentially "grittier than the norm", for a drought to be an issue to a random Solar.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-03, 11:50 AM
Also, not every Solar has thaumaturgy. Like I said, Solars are very good at what they do, but they can't do everything.

AmberVael
2010-07-03, 11:51 AM
TBH, I forget Thaumaturgy exists most of the time. :smallredface:

Anyway, I don't necessarily think that Exalted shouldn't be able to do things about a drought in a vacuum, but all I was saying is that it's perfectly plausible in a game that was self-described as potentially "grittier than the norm", for a drought to be an issue to a random Solar.

Well yeah, but then you could also say that defeating an army with a donkey jaw might be an issue to a random Solar.
Which basically points out that somewhere, this argument got a bit silly.

Solars can encounter problems, but they can also find solutions. They may not find a solution, but generally it is at least plausible that they could solve anything you throw at them, whether they actually manage it or not. In a gritty game, they may have a much harder time and a lower success rate, but that doesn't mean they're solely Celestial beatsticks. Just as much as there are soldiers, there are sorcerers, craftsmen, social leaders and cunning spies among the Exalted. We have castes other than Dawn for a reason.

^: That's not the point. The point is that there are solutions which solars can indeed perform. A number of other answers have also been offered in the thread. Of course no one character can do everything, but that's not an argument that means they never can solve something.

Kylarra
2010-07-03, 11:57 AM
Well yeah, but then you could also say that defeating an army with a donkey jaw might be an issue to a random Solar.
Which basically points out that somewhere, this argument got a bit silly.

Solars can encounter problems, but they can also find solutions. They may not find a solution, but generally it is at least plausible that they could solve anything you throw at them, whether they actually manage it or not. In a gritty game, they may have a much harder time and a lower success rate, but that doesn't mean they're solely Celestial beatsticks. Just as much as there are soldiers, there are sorcerers, craftsmen, social leaders and cunning spies among the Exalted. We have castes other than Dawn for a reason.

^: That's not the point. The point is that there are solutions which solars can indeed perform. A number of other answers have also been offered in the thread. Of course no one character can do everything, but that's not an argument that means they never can solve something.But no one is saying they can never solve something.

Jerthanis said: "<this happened in my game>."
Oslecamo said: "what happened to solars being awesomeness turned to 11?"
Other people said: "<circumstances and such>".
.
.
.
etc.

until here we are. So yes, there are plausible solutions that could potentially have done something. The fact is they didn't either try them or work in the game for one reason or another. I don't particularly like bureaucracy based red-tape blockage, but I can't deny that it's a valid way of stymieing a nascent solar.

Terraoblivion
2010-07-03, 12:02 PM
The red tape blockage specifically refers to the solution of finding the god responsible and pounding them into submission. It wouldn't relate to using thaumaturgy, for example.

AmberVael
2010-07-03, 12:07 PM
But no one is saying they can never solve something.

Jerthanis said: "<this happened in my game>."
Oslecamo said: "what happened to solars being awesomeness turned to 11?"
Other people said: "<circumstances and such>".
.
.
.
etc.

until here we are. So yes, there are plausible solutions that could potentially have done something. The fact is they didn't either try them or work in the game for one reason or another. I don't particularly like bureaucracy based red-tape blockage, but I can't deny that it's a valid way of stymieing a nascent solar.

The impression you all seem to be giving Oslecamo (and the point he seems to be arguingn) is that, in fact, a Solar would have a very difficult time combating a drought.

I'm saying that no, it is in fact quite plausible that a Solar could solve a drought. In fact, they could solve droughts so hard that they have to fix problems with flooding next.

The game can be epic, and there are avenues of making your characters into god kings of reality. These are things that they can deal with, they can accomplish these things. A gritty game does not have to be indicative of the system or other play styles. The example of "well, circumstances in one gritty game prevented these solars from solving a drought" should be thought of as one, possibly even atypical example.

Leeham
2010-07-03, 12:08 PM
Sure a sidereal can punch you into a duck.

WHAT?!? What the hell goes on in this game?

Terraoblivion
2010-07-03, 12:11 PM
Magic often taking the form of martial arts.

Really, punching someone into a duck is not intrinsically anymore illogical than mumbling at them and then seeing them turn into a duck. People are just more used to seeing the latter.

AmberVael
2010-07-03, 12:14 PM
WHAT?!? What the hell goes on in this game?

Nothing. He was a duck all along, and no punching took place. There was no one to punch the duck at all, in fact.
Why are we having this conversation?

Kylarra
2010-07-03, 12:16 PM
The impression you all seem to be giving Oslecamo (and the point he seems to be arguingn) is that, in fact, a Solar would have a very difficult time combating a drought.

I'm saying that no, it is in fact quite plausible that a Solar could solve a drought. In fact, they could solve droughts so hard that they have to fix problems with flooding next.

The game can be epic, and there are avenues of making your characters into god kings of reality. These are things that they can deal with, they can accomplish these things. A gritty game does not have to be indicative of the system or other play styles. The example of "well, circumstances in one gritty game prevented these solars from solving a drought" should be thought of as one, possibly even atypical example.My point has never been that a solar should have a hard time combating a drought, indeed all my points have been caveated with save sorcery, and by omission, thaumaturgy as I always forget it exists, as mentioned earlier, but simply that it is plausible for one to have a hard time combating a drought.

It's not:
For every Solar, Solars will have a hard time fighting droughts;
but:
There exists a Solar for whom a drought was a problem, and this is not necessarily operating against the philosophy of the system.

To be honest, oslecamo came in with a fairly antagonistic attitude and that has colored my responses to seem perhaps a tad more "overprotective" than is my usual wont, so I apologize if I came off more forceful than I'd intended.

Leeham
2010-07-03, 12:18 PM
I'm getting a distinct feeling that the Sidereals have a "I didn't do it. You didn't se me do it. Nothing happened." thing going on there. I like it.

Sanguine
2010-07-03, 12:19 PM
Nothing. He was a duck all along, and no punching took place. There was no one to punch the duck at all, in fact.
Why are we having this conversation?

Thank you I was looking for a reason to spend two wp :smallannoyed: :smalltongue:

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-03, 12:21 PM
WHAT?!? What the hell goes on in this game?

A Sidereal punching you into a duck is magic. A Solar hitting someone with a sword faster than a normal person is also magic. Calling the power of the heart of the Demon City to destroy a mountain is also magic.

Magic in Exalted takes many forms. All Exalted Charms are, however, magic; even the Solar Charms who only make you superlatively good at mundane abilities. Martial arts is one of those abilities, and Sidereals have the weirdest Charms and the most powerful martial arts, so they can do things like kick their way into a dream.

Reynard
2010-07-03, 12:51 PM
A Sidereal punching you into a duck is magic. A Solar hitting someone with a sword faster than a normal person is also magic. Calling the power of the heart of the Demon City...

So that's what that fifth power is. It all makes sense now. Although it would mean Captain Planet is 1/5 Malfeas.

Poison_Fish
2010-07-03, 02:26 PM
So that's what that fifth power is. It all makes sense now. Although it would mean Captain Planet is 1/5 Malfeas.

I'd argue that getting Wood has something to do with the Heart. You can always keep Captain Planet in the Terrestrial realm.

Oslecamo
2010-07-03, 02:30 PM
Ah well thanks Vael for clearing that up! It's just that I had heard other people talk about gritty games on Exalted on other forums and I was starting to think it was some common trend.



Magic in Exalted takes many forms. All Exalted Charms are, however, magic; even the Solar Charms who only make you superlatively good at mundane abilities. Martial arts is one of those abilities, and Sidereals have the weirdest Charms and the most powerful martial arts, so they can do things like kick their way into a dream.

Hmm, I had actualy heard some people claim on other Exalted threads one of the main advantages of this system was that it allowed nonmagic persons to break reality as easily as "magic"(aka sorcery in Exalted) users.

But you claim that combat charms in Exalted are magic that happens to have a somatic component of martial arts?

Well I guess it's diferent ways of reading the fluff.

Poison_Fish
2010-07-03, 02:33 PM
Ah well thanks Vael for clearing that up! It's just that I had heard other people talk about gritty games on Exalted on other forums and I was starting to think it was some common trend.



Hmm, I had actualy heard some people claim on other Exalted threads one of the main advantages of this system was that it allowed nonmagic persons to break reality as easily as "magic"(aka sorcery in Exalted) users.

But you claim that combat charms in Exalted are magic that happens to have a somatic component of martial arts?

Well I guess it's diferent ways of reading the fluff.

They way I've always seen it is charms tend to bend the rules, sorcery tends to break the rules but requires additional set up (Usually). Charms usually hold to a consistent theme or basis. Sorcery can have it raining poison frogs just 'cause. Even if there were never frogs to begin with in the environment.

Edit: This tends to break once you get higher essence charms. Which makes an issue compared to sorcery, as there is no sorcery level beyond solar, which you only need essence 5 to get. Hence, divine kung-fu at essence 7 turning people into ducks is roughly similar to solar and celestial level sorcery.

Drascin
2010-07-03, 02:34 PM
I'm saying that no, it is in fact quite plausible that a Solar could solve a drought. In fact, they could solve droughts so hard that they have to fix problems with flooding next.

That does sound like classic Exalted problem-solving, yeah - solving problems by replacing them with a bigger problem is pretty much the tradition in Creation :smalltongue:.


I'm getting a distinct feeling that the Sidereals have a "I didn't do it. You didn't se me do it. Nothing happened." thing going on there. I like it.

Let's just say one of their charms, easily accessible (not many prerequisites or anything) is the Avoidance Kata. Basically, when, say, someone springs an ambush on you and you see you're highly boned, you can say "no, actually, I serendipitously took the other alley because I wanted to buy a lollipop", and the causality of the world will back you up - far as your position and history are concerned, you never went into your first destination.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-03, 02:39 PM
Hmm, I had actualy heard some people claim on other Exalted threads one of the main advantages of this system was that it allowed nonmagic persons to break reality as easily as "magic"(aka sorcery in Exalted) users.

Most people confuse the Exalted terms of "magic" and "sorcery" with each other, mostly thinking only sorcery is magic. Magic in Exalted is a lot of things, and all supernatural martial arts, for example, is magic. However, even mortals can work magic, though not on the same level as Exalts, who use magic on a daily basis.

Non-sorcerers can break reality as easily as sorcerers, true, though in different ways. But to break reality* in any way requires magic, whether it be Charms or thaumaturgy or sorcery.

*Reality as we know it, at least. The reality of Creation is widely different from ours, and most of it is sustained by spirit magic, meaning it is not necessarily breaking reality in-setting to walk on the tips of stalks of bamboo, just not possible for mortals.

Oslecamo
2010-07-03, 03:05 PM
Non-sorcerers can break reality as easily as sorcerers, true, though in different ways.

Well, the core book is somewhat ambiguous on that. It indeed starts saying charms are magic, then goes on to say they don't actualy let you to do completely nonsense stuff like shooting bolts of ice out of your hands and that's sorcery stuff... And then proceeds to give you the archery charms that allow you to instantly create bows made of essence that shoot bolts of fire.:smalltongue:

Jerthanis
2010-07-03, 03:08 PM
I think mentioning the drought may have distracted from the point I was trying to make, because yes, you can buy powers that stop droughts if you know where to find this knowledge, in character and out. It wasn't a matter of the drought being the most epic because it was the hardest challenge those Exalts had to overcome. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

The drought was the most mundane situation the characters experienced in the course of the game by far, yet it was the most epic because the lives it cost were a direct consequence of the character traits of the Solar involved in the story. The grief, self recrimination and growth he pulled out of the story is the measure of how epic it was, and that level of epic absolutely dwarfed when the same character engaged in high-flying acrobatics while fighting city-sized robots or singlehandedly threw back armies of Fair Folk.

That's all I mean when I say that the most epic things are sometimes the most humble.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-03, 03:12 PM
Well, the core book is somewhat ambiguous on that. It indeed starts saying charms are magic, then goes on to say they don't actualy let you to do completely nonsense stuff like shooting bolts of ice out of your hands and that's sorcery stuff... And then proceeds to give you the archery charms that allow you to instantly create bows made of essence that shoot bolts of fire.:smalltongue:

Shooting bolts of ice out of your hands is a part of the Terrestrial Charm set, as well. Creating things of fire is pretty Solar-worthy, though, considering their powers emulate the god of the friggin' sun.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-03, 03:13 PM
In Exalted, 'magic' means 'manipulates Essence in some way'.

This leads to a lot of things being magic. Technically, humans managing to stay in one piece and not disperse into their component motes is a form of magic.

Thaumaturgy is magic. It involves coaxing the Essence patterns of Creation into performing tasks they're generally already disposed to do. The one performing the magic doesn't need to be able to channel his own Essence in order to do this, although it helps. Therefore, anyone can perform thaumaturgy.

Charms are magic. Charms are ways of channeling one's personal Essence to subvert the natural flow of Essence in Creation and manipulate some facet of reality. Charms can have wide-ranging effects, depending on the type of being performing them - Solar charms deal with being awesome, commanding and an expert in your field, while Terrestrial charms deal with elemental themes. This leads to Terrestrials generally having more obviously 'magical' charms than Solars. Only beings that can channel their own Essence - Exalts, Gods, Elementals, Ghosts, Fair Folk, Dragon Kings, etc. - can use charms. Mortals can learn charms in the form of Terrestrial Martial Arts, but they have no native charms of their own.

Sorcery is magic. Sorcery involves channeling Essence through pure willpower alone, and can have myriad effects - this is very, very overt magic. Only Essence channelers can learn to use Sorcery, and no being knows how to do it naturally - not even the Primordials, even though Sorcery more-or-less emulates their powers. (Of course, most Yozis know how to do it now.)

Necromancy is basically the same as sorcery, except it manipulates death Essence rather than living Essence.

Then there's other magical stuff, like Sidereal Astrology, Lunar shapeshifting, godly abilities that aren't actually charms...

Oslecamo
2010-07-03, 03:25 PM
Charms are magic. Charms are ways of channeling one's personal Essence to subvert the natural flow of Essence in Creation and manipulate some facet of reality.
...
Sorcery is magic. Sorcery involves channeling Essence through pure willpower alone, and can have myriad effects - this is very, very overt magic.


See, there's my point. Charms are channeling essence. Sorcery is channeling essence trough willpower. But don't charms demand willpower too? And don't charms produce a myriad of effects as well? Aren't you basically saying there that sorcery is just somewhat more complicated charms?

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-03, 03:29 PM
Charms channel Essence through your learned skills or natural abilities (depending on what sort of being you are). Some of them require willpower, but most are as simple as performing a particular sword trick you picked up.

The sword trick just happens to shoot blazing bolts of solar light, but it's still just a sword trick you picked up.

Charms can have wide-ranging effects as a whole, but each type of being has its own theme when it comes to their charms. Lunars can't throw blasts of fire. Solars can't make causality back them up when they claim they were somewhere else. Sidereals can't tell the Wyld "no, the story goes this way". Demons can't call forth the holy power of the Unconquered Sun to smite His enemies.

But spells do exactly what they do no matter who casts them, and don't care a jot about what sort of being you are. (Usually.)

Leeham
2010-07-03, 03:31 PM
And that humble epicness attracts me to the game really. To have all that superhuman, godly power but still subject to human flaws and fallibility, that's something special I think.

Drascin
2010-07-03, 03:39 PM
See, there's my point. Charms are channeling essence. Sorcery is channeling essence trough willpower. But don't charms demand willpower too? And don't charms produce a myriad of effects as well? Aren't you basically saying there that sorcery is just somewhat more complicated charms?

Not quite. You have to remember, in Creation, pretty much everything is some form of base magic, because the world was more or less pieced together from sheer impossibility by eldritch abominations and all that. But to put it in D&D terms, Charms are more or less smagicky feats, or maneuvers - they are learned simply by practice and are an extension of your training. It's mostly bending the rules of the world, in a way. Sorcery, on the other hand, is more or less discrete, universal spells that do things that very commonly downright break the rules and are the same for everyone, no matter your skills. That's why you need a tutor to teach you spells, but charms just kind of grow out of your ears when you spend time training :smalltongue:.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-03, 03:41 PM
See, there's my point. Charms are channeling essence. Sorcery is channeling essence trough willpower. But don't charms demand willpower too? And don't charms produce a myriad of effects as well? Aren't you basically saying there that sorcery is just somewhat more complicated charms?

Spells are Charms, in a way. Sorcery requires Charms to be initiated into in most cases (with the exception of mortals, who have their own method of initiation), and they are learned in ways similar to all non-native Charms (such as Martial Arts charms and Charms of other classes of beings for Eclipse castes). However, sorcery is a universal science for all beings with Essence pools. A spell will, under nearly all conditions, manifest in the exact same way, and it can be studied formally like we study physics. Other Charms rarely work that way, especially when placed in combos. One Terrestrial's Air Elemental Bolt Technique might be a swirling gust of wind, while another's might be a crackling bolt of icy lightning. When created separately by two people, two combos containing the same Charms will manifest wildly differently, due to the person's personal imprint on the flows of Essence.

ZeroNumerous
2010-07-03, 03:41 PM
Aren't you basically saying there that sorcery is just somewhat more complicated charms?

Not quite.

A charm is something you do easily and, generally, without serious effort on your part.

Sorcery takes six seconds or longer in a world where one second is enough time to run five yards and attack someone three times with a slab of magical steel three times your body's size. Not only that, but Sorcery always takes a point of Willpower and generally costs more than 10 motes of Essence. Some spells are over 30 motes.

Sorcery is putting your mind to telling the world: "No, screw you, I am going to do what I want."

Charms is off-handedly reminding the world that you're an Exalt, and because you're awesome it needs to bend physics for a bit.

TheOOB
2010-07-04, 01:25 AM
Spells are very explicitly not charms and are one of the few powers(save artifacts and heartstones) an exalt can wield that are not charms, which is part of their power.

A charm is basically you just bringing your essence into the world to create an effect. Thus solars create charms for power and leadership, abyssals death and domination, ect. Martial arts can let you bend your essence in non-standard ways, but they are still you just shaping your basic essence.

A spell uses essence as a vehicle to create something wholly new. It is much more refined and precise and precise than a charm, and they do not care what sort of essence creates the effect. Spells in game terms allow effects that you normally could not do with charms of your type. More importantly, spells are not arranged in trees, you don't have to get half a dozen prerequisites to get the effects you want. So spells are slow, inefficient, and less powerful(for the emerald and saphire circle) than solar charms, but they have their uses.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-04, 04:58 AM
...No, sorry, I would not call a spell that can slay thousands 'less powerful' than a Solar charm.

Oslecamo
2010-07-04, 05:25 AM
...No, sorry, I would not call a spell that can slay thousands 'less powerful' than a Solar charm.

Not to mention the ones that allow you to summon and control demons that are actualy able to outpunch your average Solar.:smalltongue:

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-04, 05:33 AM
Not to mention the ones that allow you to summon and control demons that are actualy able to outpunch your average Solar.:smalltongue:

By the time you're able to summon a particular demon, you are, barring some poor choices, able to defeat that demon (except for Third Circle demons, but a dedicated Essence 5 circle can fight one to a stalemate, at which point a reasonable Third Circle demon will probably concede the point).

Oslecamo
2010-07-04, 05:46 AM
By the time you're able to summon a particular demon, you are, barring some poor choices, able to defeat that demon (except for Third Circle demons, but a dedicated Essence 5 circle can fight one to a stalemate, at which point a reasonable Third Circle demon will probably concede the point).

Well yes most demons are wusses but the third circle ones are pretty hax, to the point one single solar sorceror can challenge a whole solar circle.

What would happen if we have a circle of sorcerors summoning multiple third circle demons?:smallamused:

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-04, 05:53 AM
What would happen if we have a circle of sorcerors summoning multiple third circle demons?:smallamused:

You would have a circle of idiots. Logically, an entire circle should not devote themselves to summoning multiple Third Circle demons, since the ritual takes some time and leaves the summoner very vulnerable. Also, if you fail to bind a Third Circle demon, it will probably attack you. The more Third Circle demons you summon, the higher the chances of you failing the binding. That's pretty much the only reason the Calibration Feast was created: to prevent the mass summoning of Third Circle demons.

Oslecamo
2010-07-04, 05:55 AM
Well, even then, one third circle summoner and the rest of the circle kung fu solars would be superior to a circle with the same number of members but no third circle summoner.

Mind you, solving problems by creating bigger problems is a solar staple like already mentioned.:smalltongue:

Kylarra
2010-07-04, 09:17 AM
There's a reason why nearly every rule has the caveat "except for solar circle sorcery".

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-04, 09:19 AM
There's a reason why nearly every rule has the caveat "except for solar circle sorcery".

Except for three: no time travel, no destroying or separating an Exaltation, and no resurrection.

Also, supposedly, the supremacy of perfect defenses.

Kylarra
2010-07-04, 09:22 AM
Except for three: no time travel, no destroying or separating an Exaltation, and no resurrection.

Also, supposedly, the supremacy of perfect defenses.Those are why I said nearly. I waffle on the supremacy of PDs personally, but eh, we'll see if/when we get there.

Oslecamo
2010-07-04, 09:52 AM
Those are why I said nearly. I waffle on the supremacy of PDs personally, but eh, we'll see if/when we get there.

Well, it makes solar vs solar little more than a stalemate untill one side runs out of essence or willpower to spam his PD. If both sides are geting extra essence thanks to stunts, well, they aren't going anywhere soon.

Kylarra
2010-07-04, 09:54 AM
Well, it makes solar vs solar little more than a stalemate untill one side runs out of essence or willpower to spam his PD. If both sides are geting extra essence thanks to stunts, well, they aren't going anywhere soon.I mean when it conflicts with SCS, not in general play.

Kris Strife
2010-07-04, 10:00 AM
What should I be looking at to get inspirations for anima banners, clothing and general appearances for Exalted characters?

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-04, 10:06 AM
Well, it makes solar vs solar little more than a stalemate untill one side runs out of essence or willpower to spam his PD. If both sides are geting extra essence thanks to stunts, well, they aren't going anywhere soon.

You can do that, of course. You'll probably die doing that, since if you only spam perfect defenses, your enemies may simply Essence ping you down to nothingness with non-Charm attacks. And if you want to do anything else with Charms, you either need a combo, which means you are running on a much more limited resource (Willpower), or you don't use your perfect defense.

There is a single build that can keep spamming perfect defenses without running out of motes or needing combos, but it requires you to be a Twilight.

Terraoblivion
2010-07-04, 10:23 AM
What should I be looking at to get inspirations for anima banners, clothing and general appearances for Exalted characters?

Whatever you want, really, though it is a good idea to check what the rest of your group is inspired by. Official Exalted art has everything from kimono-clad geisha to topless maya gods to Mad Max villains to a guy in a Victorian tophat all portrayed as living in the same region. Really, Exalted is not only incredibly diverse within the setting, but also has a deliberately non-uniform artstyle, specifically in order to allow the players to decide for themselves what they prefer.

In general, however, it goes like this: The Realm, the Scavenger Lands, An-Teng and Coral are Asian, with An-Teng more specifically being Thai and Burmese. Varangia is Indian. Harborhead is Subsaharan Africa. The rest of the South is the Middle East. The North is Conan, Vikings and all different kinds of indigenous people living in polar and subpolar regions. The west, apart from Coral, is Pacific islanders. Linnowan is Native Americans from the great forests. The rest of the east beyond the Scavenger Lands is generally weird and hard to classify.

In general, though, just go nuts with what you like and if it doesn't clash too much with the description of the region in question and what the other players feel like, it's fine. I mean i have at different times had Indian inspired and medieval German inspired characters come from the south western Scavenger Lands. Really, the choices are largely open for whatever you find interesting, with only typical D&D style fantasy completely avoided.

Arbane
2010-07-04, 01:08 PM
What should I be looking at to get inspirations for anima banners, clothing and general appearances for Exalted characters?

The official White-Wolf forums have a ton of fan-art on them, so that might be a good place to start.

(I'm partial to Ross Campbell's art for the rulebooks, at least when he's drawing something in addition to bald teenage girls with too many piercings.)

Kyeudo
2010-07-04, 11:48 PM
Except for three: no time travel, no destroying or separating an Exaltation, and no resurrection.

Also, supposedly, the supremacy of perfect defenses.

Resurrection is now officially possible under certain conditions. It involves letting a Yozi play with the last three days of your life.


What should I be looking at to get inspirations for anima banners, clothing and general appearances for Exalted characters?

Anima Banners? See DBZ for where to start. Take that a step up and add cool phantom tigers, dragons, firebirds, or whatever you think is fitting for your character. I have a character planned that will have rapidly spinning chains for an anima banner.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-05, 03:23 AM
Resurrection is now officially possible under certain conditions. It involves letting a Yozi play with the last three days of your life.

You can also gather up the body and its component souls and give it to a Primordial to put together. Although they won't be able to stop themselves from changing the patient in some way, so it's not quite the same.