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View Full Version : Exalted noob, need general advice



Choco
2011-04-05, 06:29 PM
So long story short, I am gonna be playing in an Exalted game that is starting up soon. Thing is I just got the rulebook today and dont know much about the system.

The storyteller is going to go over everything during the char gen session, but before then I would like some basic advice from y'all veterans. Advice about stuff that might look good but is useless, must-have charms, etc. I read before that armor is apparently useless if you just boost other types of defenses for instance. Basically the Exalted version of telling someone new to D&D 3.5 that monks are not NEARLY as good as they might look at first glance.

We are all going to be Solars, but apparently any splatbooks are welcome (DM has all of them I think). Thanks for the help!

The Rose Dragon
2011-04-05, 06:34 PM
I suppose you can't wriggle out of this one?

I'll warn you: Exalted is a heartbreaker. You'll fall in love, but it will hurt you. It will cheat on you, it will beat you, it will lie to you, and it won't bring you your slippers when you ask for them.

There are two things you absolutely need: a way to defend against unexpected attacks (Reflex Sidestep Technique is the most commonly used one), and a perfect parry or dodge. A perfect soak is highly useful if you know when to use it, but of secondary importance. Other than that, you might find a combat excellency useful, and mote pool expanders, if you can afford them, are invaluable.

Friv
2011-04-05, 06:50 PM
Three questions for you, which you may need to ask your ST:

1) Are you playing First Edition or Second Edition? I'm guessing Second, from the armor comment.
2) Are you playing with Scroll of Errata, or rules as written in the corebook? The errata is, at this point, effectively a revised edition of the game.
3) Does your group have any sort of gentleman's agreement regarding lethality? Lethality in Exalted is one of those things that one player acting out of step with the group can really drag the rest kicking and screaming into, and my creation advice for you will vary wildly depending on just how far down the broken hole you're willing to fall. :smallwink:

Choco
2011-04-05, 09:38 PM
Three questions for you, which you may need to ask your ST:

1) Are you playing First Edition or Second Edition? I'm guessing Second, from the armor comment.
2) Are you playing with Scroll of Errata, or rules as written in the corebook? The errata is, at this point, effectively a revised edition of the game.
3) Does your group have any sort of gentleman's agreement regarding lethality? Lethality in Exalted is one of those things that one player acting out of step with the group can really drag the rest kicking and screaming into, and my creation advice for you will vary wildly depending on just how far down the broken hole you're willing to fall. :smallwink:

1) 2nd
2) Errata
3) Apparently lethality will be a big concern, as we will be spending a lot of time being chased around on the Blessed Isle (of all the places to exalt.... the Unconquered Sun has some sense of humor).

As for the broken hole.... I would guess, using the 3.5 analogy again, that an ubercharger level of broken is about as high as would be tolerable, Batman wizard broken would get my kneecaps broken.


There are two things you absolutely need: a way to defend against unexpected attacks (Reflex Sidestep Technique is the most commonly used one), and a perfect parry or dodge. A perfect soak is highly useful if you know when to use it, but of secondary importance. Other than that, you might find a combat excellency useful, and mote pool expanders, if you can afford them, are invaluable.

I'll definitely have to look into those, since survivability is always a big thing for me.

SurlySeraph
2011-04-06, 08:35 AM
Well, in Exalted there isn't all that much variety of broken. It's mostly just "You can't hurt me by any means until I run out of motes," sometimes combined with "Also I have infinite motes."
The basic mechanics problem in Exalted is the "Lethality and perfects" problem. Characters have very little health relative to the damage weapons can do, so not getting hit is much more important than hitting hard. Many attacks will have a non-negligible chance of instantly killing or crippling you if they hit. Perfect Defenses let you automatically not get hit, usually for 3 motes per attack. High-optimization combat consists of trying to defend oneself and hit people with a Grand Goremaul while using up as few motes as possible, because your motes are basically your HP.

Anyway, if lethality is an issue this guide (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?489791-Exalted-Combo-Construction-Reference&p=11403363#post11403363) may be helpful. It is written by Jon Chung, who is extremely familiar with the mechanical problems in 2E and illustrates them by making nigh-unkillable builds.

Equipment:
Armor is mainly helpful against things that aren't a big threat anyway, such as mortals in large groups, and is overpriced. It can be handy though.
If you want to be boring but powerful, you fight with a Grand Goremaul.
There are nice Hearthstones out there.
Um, that's about it.

Also, enough on mechanics because the mechanics definitely isn't what makes Exalted worth playing. In what way do you want your character to be awesome? Beating up everyone in Creation? Being a ninja? Building doomsday airships to ferry your party around and rain death from the sky? Convincing entire enemy armies to join with and worship you? Talking gods and demons into waiting on you hand and foot?

Choco
2011-04-06, 09:16 AM
Also, enough on mechanics because the mechanics definitely isn't what makes Exalted worth playing. In what way do you want your character to be awesome? Beating up everyone in Creation? Being a ninja? Building doomsday airships to ferry your party around and rain death from the sky? Convincing entire enemy armies to join with and worship you? Talking gods and demons into waiting on you hand and foot?

Well for the moment I am thinking about making a character similar to any of the major Fist of the North Star characters. I want to mostly focus on the physical stats obviously, but also want to make sure that the first time social combat comes along I don't lose control of my character.

Yuki Akuma
2011-04-06, 09:22 AM
The Unconquered Sun has absolutely nothing to do with when Solars exalt. Absolutely no ability to decide who or when.

Anyway, carry on.

Tael
2011-04-06, 09:40 AM
As for the broken hole.... I would guess, using the 3.5 analogy again, that an ubercharger level of broken is about as high as would be tolerable, Batman wizard broken would get my kneecaps broken.


SERIOUSLY? There are people who would prefer to play with one-trick-pony who 1-hit KO's anything in the game than a well built, versatile wizard?

On topic, has the rest of your group played much before? What kind of power level do they do?

Choco
2011-04-06, 09:52 AM
The Unconquered Sun has absolutely nothing to do with when Solars exalt. Absolutely no ability to decide who or when.

Anyway, carry on.

That's just what it wants you to think.


SERIOUSLY? There are people who would prefer to play with one-trick-pony who 1-hit KO's anything in the game than a well built, versatile wizard?

On topic, has the rest of your group played much before? What kind of power level do they do?

Well yeah. One-trick ponies are easy to handle, both as a DM (if they get on your nerves, put em in a position where their trick wont work) and a player (they only make the rest of the party useless in one type of situation, as opposed to all the time at everything). The same is not true for someone who can do everything better than everyone else all the time.

There are going to be 4 regular players, and only me and one other guy are 1st timers. I think the power level will be on the high side.

Yuki Akuma
2011-04-06, 09:55 AM
That's just what it wants you to think.

No, really. There's another god who does that. His name's Lytek, and he's the God of Exaltation.

And even he doesn't have much say. The Celestial Exaltations are largely autonomous.

TheCountAlucard
2011-04-06, 09:57 AM
I want to mostly focus on the physical stats obviously, but also want to make sure that the first time social combat comes along I don't lose control of my character.Both of these should be relatively easy.

Well, since you're going for a martial artist-type, the obvious answer should be Martial Arts. As such, there are a number of styles that might work for you, depending on which kind of aesthetic you're going with, from ripping off other people's limbs and beating them to death with said limbs (Infernal Monster Style) to using gruesome fatalities to cow other opponents (Dark Messiah Style) to throwing someone over a mountain (Solar Hero Style)... there's even a (not-so-good) BDSM-fu style called Laughing Wounds Style.

As for social defenses, that's easy enough; one dot of Linguistics makes Sagacious Reading of Intent available to you, which perfectly protects against social attacks by those hostile to you. On the other hand, if you want to go the more all-encompassing route, go with Integrity, which nets you (among other things) a decent Shaping defense (Integrity-Protecting Prana), and Elusive Dream Defense, which perfectly protects you from mental influence by sorcerously-charging an Intimacy you create on the spot. And said defense is story-long. :smalltongue:

SurlySeraph
2011-04-06, 10:27 AM
Well for the moment I am thinking about making a character similar to any of the major Fist of the North Star characters. I want to mostly focus on the physical stats obviously, but also want to make sure that the first time social combat comes along I don't lose control of my character.

Either Dawn Caste and take Linguistics and maybe other social skills as favored abilities, or Zenith or Eclipse Caste and take Martial Arts as favored. I can't think of a martial art in Exalted that has "You are already dead" effects, but there are plenty with fairly eccentric and cool stuff. Alucard cited a few of them. Here's a list of 2E Celestial Martial Arts (http://wiki.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php?title=List_of_Celestial_Martial_Arts_Sty les), which are the ones you'll want.

Indon
2011-04-06, 06:44 PM
Armor grows weaker as the game's power level increases, and optimized combat is very potentially lethal. But it's up to your ST (and your other players) as to if you'll see that.

Your "Monk" equivalent is Thaumaturgy and Sorcery. Your ST needs to work with you to make these subsystems work for your game due to Sorcery's massive downtime requirements and resource investments and Thaumaturgy's not-being-very-good-though-the-books-imply-theres-a-lot-of-room-for-improvement.

Slade
2011-04-10, 09:51 AM
The Unconquered Sun has absolutely nothing to do with when Solars exalt. Absolutely no ability to decide who or when.

Anyway, carry on.


That's just what it wants you to think.

No, really. The 7 celestial gods have 0 ability to chose who gains the exaltations. The reason for this is simple.
When the gods went to war with the primordials, they knew they would be forced via the divine geas to shut their exalts down.
So, the Exalts where autonomous and not beholden to their individual patrons (though it is an exponentially unwise idea to tell your patron off).
When the primordials discovered that killing them only makes them reincarnate, the primordials instead found loyal beings to them (i.e. the lintha), and made the gods chose their people to exalt instead so that the newly made exalts would be loyal to the primordials instead.
However, since Autochthon was in charge of this process at the time, they could not force him to do anything. The gods had 0 say in who got the exaltation once the war started, thus insuring only the most excellent of people got Exalted.
In the current age, Lytek over sees the pruning of the Exaltations and removing the "dross" of accumulated experiences, but even he can't do more than "offer suggestions" of who to exalt.

Hope this clears it up a little.