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Welknair
2010-12-09, 11:19 AM
I recently got aquired Exalted 2e and am wondering which books would be most worth the money. I'm interested in the different kinds of exalted as well as expanding on the spell system. So... That would be the Manuals of Exalted Power and the Book of Sorcery Vol II. As I'm reading Keychain of Creation, I'd also like to learn more about how to read Old Realm (Yes, I found the pdf, and yes, I know it's wrong) which would come from Dreams of the First Age. However, I don't want to get that if all it's good for is the language. I doubt that I'd actually play a First Age game.

So, what should I get?

Teln
2010-12-09, 12:15 PM
If you're on a tight budget, I'd recommend the Storyteller's Companion. It's not a Manual of Exalted Power, but it'll let you throw together NPCs of various types of Exalted, complete with preconstructed Charm packages.

If you're looking to expand Sorcery, then get the White Treatise. As a bonus, you'll also get a free copy of the Black Treatise, which contains more Necromancy than you can shake a femur at.

The Rose Dragon
2010-12-09, 12:29 PM
Well, start with MoEP: Abyssals. You probably won't need any other book anytime soon, because your brain will melt from the awesome.

If not, get Scroll of Fallen Races. If your brain is still intact, something is wrong with you.

Xefas
2010-12-09, 12:54 PM
Get the Compass for your favorite place first. Which should be Malfeas. And then, obviously, you'll want to follow that up with the Manual of Exalted Power: Infernals...

It just makes sense! Also, there's no harm in grabbing the latest Scroll of Errata, which is free (get the one updated Nov. 14, 2010, I think?) and has several complete Solar Charms already in it, and it may help you decide on which books you want next.

The Rose Dragon
2010-12-09, 01:00 PM
Get the Compass for your favorite place first. Which should be Malfeas.

No, no! It should be the North! It has unicorns!

Xefas
2010-12-09, 01:04 PM
No, no! It should be the North! It has unicorns!

Malfeas also has unicorns! Heavy Mėtal Unicorns!

http://i925.photobucket.com/albums/ad91/bluejanus/metal-unicorn-tattoo.jpg

Kylarra
2010-12-09, 01:04 PM
Get the Compass for your favorite place first. Which should be Malfeas. And then, obviously, you'll want to follow that up with the Manual of Exalted Power: Infernals...

It just makes sense! Also, there's no harm in grabbing the latest Scroll of Errata, which is free (get the one updated Nov. 14, 2010, I think?) and has several complete Solar Charms already in it, and it may help you decide on which books you want next.I actually don't have MOEP:Infernals yet, but I do have abyssals... :smalltongue:

Anyway, I was going to agree on the BW Treaties and maybe suggest Oadenol's Codex (BoS v3), in addition to the obvious suggestions of whatever manual you like. Abyssals is probably your best bet though since it provides a fair number of mirror charms to add to your solars' repertoire, in addition to anti-heroes/antagonists in the form of the abyssals themselves and necrotech.

Britter
2010-12-09, 01:11 PM
Caveat: I am relatively new to Exalted. Take my opinon with the appropriate doseage of salt.

I'm gonna vote for the MoEP: Dragon Blooded. Yes, you will need the errata too, as the charms are wonky w/o them, but it's free.

There is a fair amount of fluff and information about the Blessed Isle and Lookshy, among other places, and frankly I think DBs make for better starter characters than Solars. You don't have to fret about combos, the perfect defense issue is mitigated somewhat, and the power level of the characters is easier for a new player to grasp (imo).

Also, I absolutely love the Dragon Blooded. They are deeply flawed, arrogant as sin, barely holding it together heroes.

golentan
2010-12-09, 01:39 PM
Depending on who you want as primary antagonists and which characters you're running/playing, EITHER storyteller's companion or one of the aforementioned MoEPs is a must. Maybe it's a personal thing, but I also find that Wonders of the Lost Age is one of my single most referenced books.

The trouble with exalted is that, as with many white wolf titles, useful things are so diffuse through the books that it's impossible to say one item is more important than another. What sort of game are you interested in?

Xefas
2010-12-09, 01:59 PM
I'm gonna vote for the MoEP: Dragon Blooded. Yes, you will need the errata too, as the charms are wonky w/o them.

Oooh, yeah, the Dragonblooded is a great book. I'd say especially if you were planning on playing a Solar game, as it provides the classic enemy for the Solars (the Wyld Hunt/Immaculate Order), defines a huge part of the world (the Blessed Isle), and throws in some bits about the Scavenger Lands, which is the "You all walk into a tavern..." equivalent for Exalted.

As to whether or not you should start your players off as Dragonblooded instead of Solars, that kind of depends on why they're playing Exalted in the first place. The entire reason I picked up the Core Rulebook to read through was because - well, it's like Paranoia; even if you've never played it, just by being in the tabletop community for long enough, you hear stuff about it unintentionally. I'd heard about Solars and their ridiculous power level.

The capability to explore a character who can go, within an instant, from relatively mundane to jumping miles at a time and punching through steel and dodging the occasional errant mountain - that was the initial spark that made me pick up that book. To have my first Storyteller be like "Yeeeeah, and now we're gonna be playing Terrestrials. They're a bit like the E6 of the Exalted world." I'd have been disappointed. I would still have played, and would still have had fun, but disappointed all the same.

Now, the situation won't be like that for everyone. For players who have never heard of Exalted, it might be badass to start as Dragonblooded, introduce them to the game like that from the Dynasts' perspective, and then switch it up on them the second campaign by having them play the horrible god-monsters they had once hunted.

But, you should find out what their expectations are first.

Reynard
2010-12-09, 02:45 PM
To have my first Storyteller be like "Yeeeeah, and now we're gonna be playing Terrestrials. They're a bit like the E6 of the Exalted world."

Not true. DBs can be equally ridiculous... between Anima Flux*, the ability to use Reflexive charms whenever they feel like it**, and their default Magical Material being the most powerful for weapons***, even an only moderately built DB can stand up to one or two Solars, maybe even win.

* If this gets high enough, nothing can stop it. And if anything gets in range, they will be incapable of fighting back in short order.
** A ridiculously powerful ability for what should be the weakest kind of Exalt.
*** Speed is king. Always. Accuracy matters, yes, as does Defense. The Damage from the weapon is entirely irrelevant a lot of the time.

Britter
2010-12-09, 02:49 PM
But, you should find out what their expectations are first.

This is pretty much my GM-ing mantra, and I heartily endorse it, in particular as it relates to Exalted, a game that is in many ways all about expectations. Play what you and your group want to play.

Welknair
2010-12-09, 06:03 PM
My group has never heard about Exalted. As such, it's a matter of what's interesting. I do like the idea of starting them as DBs to ease them into the game and then switching to the other types of Exalts.

So...

Latest Errata (Free online)
Book of Sorcery Vol II: Black and White Treatise
MoEP: DB
MoEP: Abyssals
MoEP: Lunars (?)
Any one compass that I think that I could work with (Thinking scavenger lands for similarity to DnD)
Book of Sorcery Vol I: Wonders of the lost age
Book of Sorcery Vol III: Oadenol's Codex

That's seven books, about my buying limit atm.

Any suggested swaps?

Britter
2010-12-09, 06:47 PM
DBs can be pretty potent but are not Solar-level powerful, generally. The ability to use reflexive charms outside of combos, the fact that you can use your peripheral essence all you want without calling the Hunt down on your head, the fact that most kung-fu/wuxia films are fairly representative of the power level of the average Terrestrial charm. These are things I like about the Dragon Blooded.

Also, you get to be the rulers of the world, and that is rarely a bad thing.

Mando Knight
2010-12-09, 06:50 PM
To have my first Storyteller be like "Yeeeeah, and now we're gonna be playing Terrestrials. They're a bit like the E6 of the Exalted world."

That's like E6 in Exalted, when the main fare of the game involves level 20+ wizards, sorcerers, and clerics. Unless I'm forgetting something else...

Oh, wait. Mortals. That's right. Wanna play a mortal in an Exalted game? Here we go:

Epic Guy, The Immortal Dawn of the Eternal Day sees you help up a Dragonblooded Exalt who's trying to kill him. You are dead before you blink.

Welknair
2010-12-09, 07:40 PM
Is it possible to feasibly run a multi-exalt game? i.e. One with a lunar, two solars, and an abyssal, for example. I know that the Solars are supposed to be the strongest, but does that mean that all players using other kinds of exalts will feel overshadowed by them? How do Lunars and Abyssals weigh against one another?

Oh, and is the book selection decent?

Kylarra
2010-12-09, 07:42 PM
Is it possible to feasibly run a multi-exalt game? i.e. One with a lunar, two solars, and an abyssal, for example. I know that the Solars are supposed to be the strongest, but does that mean that all players using other kinds of exalts will feel overshadowed by them? How do Lunars and Abyssals weigh against one another?

Oh, and is the book selection decent?Solars are the top of the tier, with faux-solars (abyssals and infernals) not far behind them, then lunars, sidereals and DBs. Alchemicals are about the same tier-ish as sidereals ime, because of their limited charmslots.

Welknair
2010-12-09, 07:45 PM
What would you recommend doing to balance them? Should they be balanced? It's odd where your effective race/classes are blatantly stated to be more powerful than another. In DnD it's all about LA and ECL.

If you made sure that the characters didn't overlap, I assume it could work.

Heck, I've been playing a level 0.75 Wizard (Don't ask) and he's been quite useful despite the fact that he gets only first and zero level spells while the rest of the group is level nine.

And the types are different enough that whatever is lost in raw power is made up in diversity and novelty.

Thoughts? (Still would like confirmation on book choices)

Tavar
2010-12-09, 07:52 PM
Depending on the player experience level, not much needs to be done. A well-built DB can keep up with a poorly built celestial quite easily, and can even surpass them in the Celestial's chosen area. Having different character focused on different things helps tremendously, though, and it's a good idea even if everyone's the same kind of exalt. Also, there are a lot of advantages to starting as one of the weaker exalts(for example, Alchemicals get x3 artifacts for each dot. Lunars and Sids have a support network that Solars lack, etc).

Welknair
2010-12-09, 07:57 PM
So in other words, they still have enough unique benefits to be interesting and set apart significantly from other types of Exalts.

Playing one of the lower-tiered exalts would be more of a challenge. Some of my players are naturally more adept at making optimized characters. It would be interesting to set them the task of optimizing a DB while my slightly more whimsical players used upper level Exalts. I think they'd actually be about even... And of course the player that I'm thinking of would not only make a halfway decent DB, but then find the best way to use and show off with it...

Reynard
2010-12-09, 08:00 PM
Is it possible to feasibly run a multi-exalt game? i.e. One with a lunar, two solars, and an abyssal, for example. I know that the Solars are supposed to be the strongest, but does that mean that all players using other kinds of exalts will feel overshadowed by them? How do Lunars and Abyssals weigh against one another?

Oh, and is the book selection decent?

Books are good, though I'd swap Abyssals for Infernals, as they're more than just NegaSolars.

Multi-Exalt games are perfectly fine, and everyone will be able to contribute for a damn long time. If you ever hit Essence 6, then you'll start to see disparity, but even then. The only reason, THE only reason DBs are considered weaker than the others in my book is their lack of a Perfect Defense. Except that 'their' second splat added one. DB charms deal with different things to Solar and Lunar ones, so there's little overlap.

Solar Melee is the best Melee tree. But DBs have the most powerful War tree, and fear a combat-specced Lunar.

One thing I've heard as a way of describing the way the different Exalts work, mostly related to combat:
Solars plan the wars.
Lunars protect everybody. Soldiers, generals, a Lunar bodyguard is the best you can get.
DBs lead the units in the wars.
Siddies stack the odds.


Solars are the top of the tier, with faux-solars (abyssals and infernals) not far behind them, then lunars, sidereals and DBs. Alchemicals are about the same tier-ish as sidereals ime, because of their limited charmslots.

IIRC, it's
Solars/Abyssals/Infernals. (Though Infernals with Heretical charms are probably higher.)
Lunars.
Alchemicals.
Siddies.
DBs.


What would you recommend doing to balance them? Should they be balanced? It's odd where your effective race/classes are blatantly stated to be more powerful than another. In DnD it's all about LA and ECL.

Don't try too hard. Though there are some truly horribly broken things. Example of 2:
Watch out for anything that raises Appearance by a decent margin. It's the Social god-stat.
Gem of Perfect Mobility SHOULD NOT REDUCE SPEED PAST 3. Well, it can, but whoever has it will be almost unstoppable.


If you made sure that the characters didn't overlap, I assume it could work.

And the types are different enough that whatever is lost in raw power is made up in diversity and novelty.

Yes, definitely. If nobody completely steals someone elses shtick, it works well.

Yuki Akuma
2010-12-09, 08:02 PM
If you can find a copy of Dreams of the First Age, by all means get it.

It's worth it for the Guide to Meru alone.

Welknair
2010-12-09, 08:13 PM
My primary place of purchase would be Amazon.com. I just checked the price of Dreams of the First Age.

...

Are the pages made of gold or something? I've spent a deal on my roleplaying books, but $132.80?!? FOR A USED COPY. What kind of person buys a book (boxed set) that costs nearly a thousand dollars??

I am obviously not fanatic enough.

Kylarra
2010-12-09, 08:23 PM
IIRC, it's
Solars/Abyssals/Infernals. (Though Infernals with Heretical charms are probably higher.)
Lunars.
Alchemicals.
Siddies.
DBs.Well yeah, once you get into I AM YOZI HEAR ME ROAR-type charms, they may overtake the originals to some extent. Alchemicals I placed on par with siddies since they need to have easy access to their vats otherwise they're pretty much worse than DBs for everything that's not their specialty.

Welknair
2010-12-09, 08:34 PM
Is there any way to get the correct Old Realm syllabary without spending over a hundred dollars? No pdfs, pictures, recreations, or the like could be found online. I found the "Old Realm Lessons" pdf, but those aren't the correct glyphs. Any ideas?

The Rose Dragon
2010-12-09, 08:39 PM
Is there any way to get the correct Old Realm syllabary without spending over a hundred dollars? No pdfs, pictures, recreations, or the like could be found online. I found the "Old Realm Lessons" pdf, but those aren't the correct glyphs. Any ideas?

If you have 42 dollars, you can get the full .pdfs of the Dreams of the First Age set on RPGNow.com.

Welknair
2010-12-09, 08:42 PM
Hmm... Certainly is a step-up from $133...

Thanks.

Teln
2010-12-10, 11:39 AM
When you download the Scroll of Errata, do not get the one from the White Wolf site, they're pretty bad about keeping their version up to date. Get the one from here (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?cPath=403&products_id=84593) instead.