Kiero
2011-07-04, 06:44 AM
I hadn't seen this (http://aakin.net/qwixalted/doku.php)until recently, it's an alternative system for Exalted based on the 1st edition quickstart, some stuff from 2nd edition and various ideas from nWoD.
To quote some of the goals:
What is Qwixalted?
Qwixalted started as the temporary name for my project of expanding the 1st Edition Exalted Quickstart and streamlining the 2nd Edition's complexity until they melded into one glorious magic material amalgam.
That was the original idea anyway. Things have a way of changing though. The name got thrown around so much that it kind of stuck and the original RPGnet thread drew so much interest and so many different ideas that this wiki was born.
I had an idea for what Qwixalted was, but then so did so many others on RPGnet. Qwixalted became bigger than me. It started as a game and became a philosophy. We love Exalted, but we don't need their rules. Not when we've got ours…
And the most important bit, how it works:
How does it work?
Similar to the Quickstart rules, each character knows only 5 Abilities (Example: Dawn, Zenith, Twilight, Night, and Eclipse for Solars) with each of these Abilities covering their associated skills. Abilities are rated 1 to 6 and they form the dice pool for almost every roll.
I took a hint from (new) World of Darkness and simplified the base mechanic into Ability - Difficulty = Pool. A single success accomplishes any task, though more successes sometimes do a better job. Combat ends up as (Ability + Weapon Damage) - (Defense + Soak). With the defender using only static values, combat smooths out nicely!
What I'm most proud of, however, are the Charm rules. Instead of complicated, labyrinthine, convoluted, and arcane charm trees, all Charms are reduced to 6 basic keywords. Solars have Overwhelming, Reaching, Multiple, Paced, Supernatural, and Holy. Learning a charm means buying a keyword and attaching it to a skill (Example: Blazing Solar Bolt is reduced to a Melee attack using Reaching + Holy). Simple, fast, and flexible!
Why bother?
Why use Qwixalted?
In addition to the streamlining above, I made a few very specific design choices:
Excluding Flurries - Only one attack per turn, nWoD style.
Simplifying Combat - No DV penalties, just move and attack on your turn.
Reducing the “Whiff Factor” - Exalts always roll at least 1 die, and a missed attack grants a bonus to the defender's next roll.
These are problems I always had with Exalted and things that I feel needed to change if the game was to be playable. That is, playable for me. And the shloads of others that feel Exalted is ridiculously crunchy.
In short, Qwixalted is all flavor and no frustration.
The page with the rules on is here (http://aakin.net/qwixalted/doku.php?id=complete_rule_sets). Still digesting it, but I think it's pretty neat.
To quote some of the goals:
What is Qwixalted?
Qwixalted started as the temporary name for my project of expanding the 1st Edition Exalted Quickstart and streamlining the 2nd Edition's complexity until they melded into one glorious magic material amalgam.
That was the original idea anyway. Things have a way of changing though. The name got thrown around so much that it kind of stuck and the original RPGnet thread drew so much interest and so many different ideas that this wiki was born.
I had an idea for what Qwixalted was, but then so did so many others on RPGnet. Qwixalted became bigger than me. It started as a game and became a philosophy. We love Exalted, but we don't need their rules. Not when we've got ours…
And the most important bit, how it works:
How does it work?
Similar to the Quickstart rules, each character knows only 5 Abilities (Example: Dawn, Zenith, Twilight, Night, and Eclipse for Solars) with each of these Abilities covering their associated skills. Abilities are rated 1 to 6 and they form the dice pool for almost every roll.
I took a hint from (new) World of Darkness and simplified the base mechanic into Ability - Difficulty = Pool. A single success accomplishes any task, though more successes sometimes do a better job. Combat ends up as (Ability + Weapon Damage) - (Defense + Soak). With the defender using only static values, combat smooths out nicely!
What I'm most proud of, however, are the Charm rules. Instead of complicated, labyrinthine, convoluted, and arcane charm trees, all Charms are reduced to 6 basic keywords. Solars have Overwhelming, Reaching, Multiple, Paced, Supernatural, and Holy. Learning a charm means buying a keyword and attaching it to a skill (Example: Blazing Solar Bolt is reduced to a Melee attack using Reaching + Holy). Simple, fast, and flexible!
Why bother?
Why use Qwixalted?
In addition to the streamlining above, I made a few very specific design choices:
Excluding Flurries - Only one attack per turn, nWoD style.
Simplifying Combat - No DV penalties, just move and attack on your turn.
Reducing the “Whiff Factor” - Exalts always roll at least 1 die, and a missed attack grants a bonus to the defender's next roll.
These are problems I always had with Exalted and things that I feel needed to change if the game was to be playable. That is, playable for me. And the shloads of others that feel Exalted is ridiculously crunchy.
In short, Qwixalted is all flavor and no frustration.
The page with the rules on is here (http://aakin.net/qwixalted/doku.php?id=complete_rule_sets). Still digesting it, but I think it's pretty neat.