TTRPG combat with emphasis on *player* skill?

[DE5PA1R]

Hello! Can anyone recommend me a ttrpg with a *combat system* that gets easier and easier the more the *players* know about the enemy and experience playing the game? Something where a very skilled low-level non-min-maxed party could go toe-to-toe with an adult dragon or equally impressive creature and win, say, 80% of the time.

Put another way, I'm looking for a tabletop game where all else being equal (level, equipment, etc) the power level of knowledgeable and skilled players drastically dwarfs the power level of unskilled players.

I'd assume random elements - especially how defense works - would be minimal to make the game more predictable for the players.

Please note:

• I am specifically talking about how much the players affect the characters' prowess.
• I'm not talking about specific or narrow choices made during character creation; when I say combat system, I mean the turn-by-turn decisions players are making after some in-game prep work.
• I don't assume a level 3 party fighting a dragon would be easy, just that it would be possible - but only by a set of extremely skilled players all working together. This hypothetical fight could last several in-game days and if one PC makes a mistake (at that low of a level) I'd assume a TPK.

Thanks!

[DeTess]

Hello! Can anyone recommend me a ttrpg with a *combat system* that gets easier and easier the more the *players* know about the enemy and experience playing the game? Something where a very skilled low-level non-min-maxed party could go toe-to-toe with an adult dragon or equally impressive creature and win, say, 80% of the time.

Put another way, I'm looking for a tabletop game where all else being equal (level, equipment, etc) the power level of knowledgeable and skilled players drastically dwarfs the power level of unskilled players.

I'd assume random elements - especially how defense works - would be minimal to make the game more predictable for the players.

Please note:

• I am specifically talking about how much the players affect the characters' prowess.
• I'm not talking about specific or narrow choices made during character creation; when I say combat system, I mean the turn-by-turn decisions players are making after some in-game prep work.
• I don't assume a level 3 party fighting a dragon would be easy, just that it would be possible - but only by a set of extremely skilled players all working together. This hypothetical fight could last several in-game days and if one PC makes a mistake (at that low of a level) I'd assume a TPK.

Thanks!

So, essentially you want something with a combat system that's more like chess or something? Where being really tactically knowledgeable trumps having OP 'pieces'? I'm not certain something like this exists for ttrpg (most of the player skill comes into play building a character and knowing what they can do, but you specifically called out a scenario in which character optimization is not a thing), but I'll be interested in seeing what others come up with.

Edit: Maybe an RPG based on war-game engine? Something like Battletech, where (I assume, I've never played it) most combat happens using the war-game rules?

[CharonsHelper]

You might be better off with a skirmish style wargame where you roleplay what happens leading up to combat - maybe using a different system entirely.

[Knaight]

Burning Wheel. The character side still matters, but the core combat system involves double blind selection of one of eleven default actions, plus whatever is open situationally. These then feed in to a massive matrix that describes how they interact.

If you're good at predicting your opponent and consistently have the advantage in selected move you can overcome a much stronger opponent. Aiming feints at defends, counters at attacks, attacks at feints, locks at shoves, etc. can add up quickly, despite character skill or equipment gradients - and that's without getting into shenanigans I've seen (most notably a question that came up on the forums about using the draw action to draw an opponent's weapon after grabbing them, which was part of a scarily effective opening ambush from an initially unarmed character).

Then there's Mythender and Anima Prime, where instead of the Fight! matrix the combat system is based in powers and the management of several fluctuating resources that all interact with the system of powers. Beyond that basically any system that heavily uses a grid has at least some of this if the environments are designed well.

[DeTess]

Burning Wheel. The character side still matters, but the core combat system involves double blind selection of one of eleven default actions, plus whatever is open situationally. These then feed in to a massive matrix that describes how they interact.

If you're good at predicting your opponent and consistently have the advantage in selected move you can overcome a much stronger opponent. Aiming feints at defends, counters at attacks, attacks at feints, locks at shoves, etc. can add up quickly, despite character skill or equipment gradients - and that's without getting into shenanigans I've seen (most notably a question that came up on the forums about using the draw action to draw an opponent's weapon after grabbing them, which was part of a scarily effective opening ambush from an initially unarmed character).

How exactly does the predicting work? What you've described in the first paragraph sounds like every round is a game of rock, paper, scissors, lizard, spock, etc. but apparently there's more to it?

[Quertus]

Burning Wheel. The character side still matters, but the core combat system involves double blind selection of one of eleven default actions, plus whatever is open situationally. These then feed in to a massive matrix that describes how they interact.

If you're good at predicting your opponent and consistently have the advantage in selected move you can overcome a much stronger opponent. Aiming feints at defends, counters at attacks, attacks at feints, locks at shoves, etc. can add up quickly, despite character skill or equipment gradients - and that's without getting into shenanigans I've seen (most notably a question that came up on the forums about using the draw action to draw an opponent's weapon after grabbing them, which was part of a scarily effective opening ambush from an initially unarmed character).

Then there's Mythender and Anima Prime, where instead of the Fight! matrix the combat system is based in powers and the management of several fluctuating resources that all interact with the system of powers. Beyond that basically any system that heavily uses a grid has at least some of this if the environments are designed well.

Something like this, but where you can know that Black Knights only have "thrust" and "parry", but not "dodge", and can plan your strategy accordingly? Hmmm... May I suggest Exalted?

In Exalted, player skill, knowing exactly what powers and weaknesses every style has would probably be huge.

[MrStabby]

Played/built a homebrew MtG RPG... about 10 years ago now? Wow. Didn't seem that long.

Skills, spells etc. were represented by cards and there was a huge element of skill in what to keep in hand, what to play and how to bluff the DM. Some "low power" cards are so situationally powerful that it was possible to defeat really tough encounters through skill (including deck construction). Other aspects of the game were a mess and there were some deepish balance issues so we never really fixed it - would be keen to go back to it at some point.

[Knaight]

How exactly does the predicting work? What you've described in the first paragraph sounds like every round is a game of rock, paper, scissors, lizard, spock, etc. but apparently there's more to it?

It's similar to that, except you're scripting multiple rounds in advance (though you can break out of a script and switch actions if you're willing to forfeit other actions entirely to do that), the different actions aren't equally valuable, and the symmetry is broken. Take rock paper scissors as the simplest example here, played over multiple rounds. There there's a point for winning, no point for tying, and no point loss for losing.

Even boiled down to just attack defend feint counter the system is more complex. Two defends bounce right off, but two attacks translate to both being fairly likely to hit, but not necessarily at the same time. If you're significantly better than your opponent and they don't have much armor that double attack might be good for you. You'll probably hit first and hard, and wound them enough to either completely nullify their attack or at least make it minor. If you've also got good armor that just gets better. On the other hand, they likely know this, which makes them likely to counter, which means you might want to feint.

Then there's variation in speed, where some actions go up against straight up blanks. If you know exactly how fast your opponent is and you know the system well enough you know exactly which actions you get that they don't in every set of nine (three rounds of three, scripted simultaneously). So maybe you want to play defensively on the overlap, then throw your nastiest maneuvers at crappy passive defenses. On the other hand if you can predict this strategy from an opponent and suss out which defenses are likely to show up when you can hopefully position yourself so they can't do that come that round, either because they're down or because you've got a solid advantage somehow (the lock action here is generally your friend).

There's also a positioning system with reach tied in to it and some moves about altering that, which is another angle to play with. Those exchanged attacks I mentioned earlier? An even better situation than better skill and better armor is being faster moving with longer reach, deliberately provoking a movement competition one action before exchange of attacks, then getting in a clean shot while completely out of reach. On the other hand that too is somewhat predictable (of course the guy with the spear wants to stay out), and better movement isn't enough to counter a well timed dedicated charge - itself predictable enough to make charge countering worth it.

It's less rock paper scissors and more the mindgames associated with high level fighting game tournaments, or high level competitive Pokemon, or even Poker. Exchanges of second and third best moves because of counters to counters, so on and so forth. There's a whole forum PvP duel area on the official forums just because of it, and they're interesting reading from a system design perspective.

Moving back to this thread though, the GM isn't likely trying to win in quite the same way as those PvP duels. Instead they're playing specific characters with specific personalities, and particular styles of fighting that come out of it. It might be better for that orc to use a feint and counter heavy strategy, but come on, it's an orc. So the orc does orc behavior, which means that players that understand orc behavior can take it even with a character significantly worse at fighting than said orc.

[DeTess]

*snip*

Thanks for the explanation!

That sounds really interesting, really complicated, and a lot like what the OP asked for. I'll keep this system in mind for when I've got a bit of time to learn another TTRPG.

[Segev]

You might also take a look at various cooperative board and card games, where the players are working together against an "AI" that is built into the rules of the game that dictates how the world, enemies, whatever create opposition.

Sentinels of the Multiverse is particularly close in execution to the concept of fighting an enemy. Each player has a "hero deck" that represents the powers and abilities of one particular superhero they're controlling, and there's a "villain deck" that has specific rules on how you flip the cards in the deck to determine what the villain's up to each round. This creates things to which the players must respond with their available powers and actions, all while trying to get enough breathing room to actually deal directly with the villain.

You'd probably want to have your NPC enemies set up on a similar "AI," where you've designed them in advance to be difficult to a particular level. otherwise, you're winding up with the DM vs. the players as the DM has to essentially demonstrate his own prowess at using the system for the enemies to stand up to the players, and the players have to be better than the DM at the combat game to win the fight.

Most ttRPGs use statistics-based difficulty curves and the RNG of the dice to make it so that it's just a tactical level where things get "player skill"-related, and the DM is more interested in modeling tactics and goals of the monster than in demonstrating his skill at the competitive puzzle-game that is the combat engine.

Note: this problem isn't solved by a "good DM" who "isn't competitive about it." If the DM has to play the skill-basis for the combat engine for NPC enemies, not being competitive translates to "going easy." It's like playing chess with your friends, and deciding that this chess game should go to them, so you deliberately make bad moves. Not satisfying for anybody. (Worse, it also means the DM can't adequately model highly-skilled enemies if the DM is not already better than the players at this game.)

Using a pre-established AI set up as a puzzle means the DM can take all the time he needs to make it precisely as tough as he wants it to be, but then doesn't have to "go easy" or be "better" than the players in the turn-to-turn moments. He can back off to the same tactical level he is at in other ttRPGs, choosing what enemies, if any, to introduce and how to use them.

[DE5PA1R]

It's similar to that, except you're scripting multiple rounds in advance (though you can break out of a script and switch actions if you're willing to forfeit other actions entirely to do that), the different actions aren't equally valuable, and the symmetry is broken. Take rock paper scissors as the simplest example here, played over multiple rounds. There there's a point for winning, no point for tying, and no point loss for losing.

Even boiled down to just attack defend feint counter the system is more complex. Two defends bounce right off, but two attacks translate to both being fairly likely to hit, but not necessarily at the same time. If you're significantly better than your opponent and they don't have much armor that double attack might be good for you. You'll probably hit first and hard, and wound them enough to either completely nullify their attack or at least make it minor. If you've also got good armor that just gets better. On the other hand, they likely know this, which makes them likely to counter, which means you might want to feint.

Then there's variation in speed, where some actions go up against straight up blanks. If you know exactly how fast your opponent is and you know the system well enough you know exactly which actions you get that they don't in every set of nine (three rounds of three, scripted simultaneously). So maybe you want to play defensively on the overlap, then throw your nastiest maneuvers at crappy passive defenses. On the other hand if you can predict this strategy from an opponent and suss out which defenses are likely to show up when you can hopefully position yourself so they can't do that come that round, either because they're down or because you've got a solid advantage somehow (the lock action here is generally your friend).

There's also a positioning system with reach tied in to it and some moves about altering that, which is another angle to play with. Those exchanged attacks I mentioned earlier? An even better situation than better skill and better armor is being faster moving with longer reach, deliberately provoking a movement competition one action before exchange of attacks, then getting in a clean shot while completely out of reach. On the other hand that too is somewhat predictable (of course the guy with the spear wants to stay out), and better movement isn't enough to counter a well timed dedicated charge - itself predictable enough to make charge countering worth it.

It's less rock paper scissors and more the mindgames associated with high level fighting game tournaments, or high level competitive Pokemon, or even Poker. Exchanges of second and third best moves because of counters to counters, so on and so forth. There's a whole forum PvP duel area on the official forums just because of it, and they're interesting reading from a system design perspective.

Moving back to this thread though, the GM isn't likely trying to win in quite the same way as those PvP duels. Instead they're playing specific characters with specific personalities, and particular styles of fighting that come out of it. It might be better for that orc to use a feint and counter heavy strategy, but come on, it's an orc. So the orc does orc behavior, which means that players that understand orc behavior can take it even with a character significantly worse at fighting than said orc.

This is very intriguing and I'll definitely take a look. Couldn't help but think of this scene:

https://youtu.be/3EkBuKQEkio

[Koo Rehtorb]

This is very intriguing and I'll definitely take a look. Couldn't help but think of this scene:

https://youtu.be/3EkBuKQEkio

There's also a social argument system in the game that works along roughly similar means (though less complicated) called Duel of Wits, which is probably a better fit.

[NichG]

Maybe something based on the Persona/SMT systems would work, where there are lots of hard counters and pulling off a hard counter feeds back into extra actions? So each creature would be 'statted' more as a script of actions than a set of numerical stats, and the player advantage is entirely that they don't have to use a fixed script.

So for example, even a starting party would have access to things like 'make the party immune to a single fire attack', 'revive one character on KO', etc - basically preparatory abilities that get used up when proc'd. Very powerful enemies would have attacks in their script that would be an automatic TPK if they proc against a weaker party, but if the players know the script well they can use forcing moves to avoid those branches entirely. E.g. maybe a dragon that is allowed two consecutive turns without taking damage can setup and use a Flyby Attack that does a simultaneous Physical attack against all enemies, but otherwise uses AoE elemental attacks that can be Nulled or single target physicals that drop only one character at a time.

[Reversefigure4]

Mmm... hard concept. Because any TTRPG that relies on player skill probably also relies on DM skill.

Either the DM has to use an 'enemy script', and is essentially an AI in combat, which loses a lot of the flexibility that makes TTRPGs greats, or the DM has to pit their skill level against the players (4 people are generally smarter than 1, it adds a lot of stress to the DM role, and you don't necessarily want to win fights for the continuity of the game).

[Florian]

What a weird question. Player skill = meta gaming and any gaming system with pronounced mechanical drawbacks and benefits can be "gamed" in that way.

[ChamHasNoRoom]

In Exalted, player skill, knowing exactly what powers and weaknesses every style has would probably be huge.

The winning strategy in Exalted is to combine perfect attacks and perfect defenses until you are literally invincible and unblockable except by other invincible unblockable people, at which point all that matters is who runs out of blue juice first.

[Quertus]

The winning strategy in Exalted is to combine perfect attacks and perfect defenses until you are literally invincible and unblockable except by other invincible unblockable people, at which point all that matters is who runs out of blue juice first.

Yes and no. Isn't that kinda the "low skill" version of Exalted? Whereas the "high skill" version would be more like, "I see you are using Dark Sun style. You cannot block unless you are touching the ground, cannot dodge in sunlight... I see that you have combo'd your attack with a dodge... But, if I use an attack that cannot be dodged, can you still attack and block? If so, I need to remove you from the ground, then launch my unlockable attack".

Metagaming at its finest.

[Segev]

Yes and no. Isn't that kinda the "low skill" version of Exalted? Whereas the "high skill" version would be more like, "I see you are using Dark Sun style. You cannot block unless you are touching the ground, cannot dodge in sunlight... I see that you have combo'd your attack with a dodge... But, if I use an attack that cannot be dodged, can you still attack and block? If so, I need to remove you from the ground, then launch my unlockable attack".

Metagaming at its finest.

Sort-of, except that most PC perfect defenses can be used even against undodgeable and unblockable effects. And the flaws of invulnerability were poorly-enough designed that arranging to hit somebody when he can't use his defenses is nigh impossible.

[Quertus]

Sort-of, except that most PC perfect defenses can be used even against undodgeable and unblockable effects. And the flaws of invulnerability were poorly-enough designed that arranging to hit somebody when he can't use his defenses is nigh impossible.

... Aren't perfect defenses dodges, blocks, soaks, and, um, whatever else? Parrys, maybe? If they only have one prefect defense, and it's a dodge, cannot one use an undodgeable attack, or negate the conditions of their dodge, in order to hit them? Is that not the way that at least one edition of Exalted works?

[Mechalich]

... Aren't perfect defenses dodges, blocks, soaks, and, um, whatever else? Parrys, maybe? If they only have one prefect defense, and it's a dodge, cannot one use an undodgeable attack, or negate the conditions of their dodge, in order to hit them? Is that not the way that at least one edition of Exalted works?

Except there's nothing to stop a character from having all of the perfect defenses, and indeed that was the go to strategy in all variations of 2e Exalted: the Turtle-Combo that could be used to perfect any and all attacks. 1e worked differently - the goal was to maximize persistent active defenses in order to make your character functionally unhittable in any way (the D&D equivalent is never leaving home without being buffed to the gills) and I believe 3e functions somewhat similarly (insofar as 3e is actually a game, which is not very).

The real problem Exalted 2e had was that all attacks either did 0 damage (negated via perfect, outright miss), 1 damage (fail to penetrate soak), or immediate death. Since the game was designed so that characters only had ~10 health levels total (and losing even half of them inflicted crippling wound penalties), taking any damage from an attack resulted in death very rapidly. This meant perfect defenses were far superior to any other defensive option. This was, ultimately, a problem created by how the Storyteller system's core mechanics interacted with high dice pool numbers, which is to say, they did not function (basic mechanical problems crippled Aberrant, Exalted, and Scion).

[RazorChain]

Hello! Can anyone recommend me a ttrpg with a *combat system* that gets easier and easier the more the *players* know about the enemy and experience playing the game? Something where a very skilled low-level non-min-maxed party could go toe-to-toe with an adult dragon or equally impressive creature and win, say, 80% of the time.

Put another way, I'm looking for a tabletop game where all else being equal (level, equipment, etc) the power level of knowledgeable and skilled players drastically dwarfs the power level of unskilled players.

I'd assume random elements - especially how defense works - would be minimal to make the game more predictable for the players.

Please note:

• I am specifically talking about how much the players affect the characters' prowess.
• I'm not talking about specific or narrow choices made during character creation; when I say combat system, I mean the turn-by-turn decisions players are making after some in-game prep work.
• I don't assume a level 3 party fighting a dragon would be easy, just that it would be possible - but only by a set of extremely skilled players all working together. This hypothetical fight could last several in-game days and if one PC makes a mistake (at that low of a level) I'd assume a TPK.

Thanks!

Gurps using a lot of optional rules and the full advanced tactical combat rules comes to mind. Give a noob player and an experienced player the same character to fight against each other and the experienced player will probably win just because he knows all the options and the modifiers. He's going to ask if that is a sturdy table and then jump on top of it to gain the higher ground, he's going to use a beat instead of a feint when his character is strong and he fights an opponent with high parry, he's going to play the map against the inexpirenced player by retreating and forcing the other player to make bad decisions that penalize his defenses, he's going to stack his defenses just to be able to make a good riposte and follow up with a rapid strike to make use of the opening or even go all out just if he's sure he can finish the fight.

It still relies on chance but a good player is the one who manages his chances, knows when to take a risk and when the payoff is great. The options are so many and the combination of options makes for that an experienced, tactical minded players can defeat stronger opponents. If you just declare that you are going to hit your opponent then you've probably lost already.

[Xuc Xac]

Hello! Can anyone recommend me a ttrpg with a *combat system* that gets easier and easier the more the *players* know about the enemy and experience playing the game?

Free Kriegsspiel could do it. If you want to use it for a fantasy game, the GM will have to do a lot of prep work to clarify (to himself) exactly how the fantastic elements like magic and dragon fire work and then be consistent with it.

Kriegsspiel was a wargame used to train German officers but the rules were too complex and combats took forever to resolve. So they came up with Free Kriegsspiel that gave more power to the referee to just decide results based on his own personal battlefield experience instead of consulting charts and calculating chances.

The good thing is that players don't need to learn a bunch of dice modifiers and stuff. They can just make decisions like "I'm going to order this unit to charge while this one tries to flank around this side. How thick is that stand of trees?"

The bad thing is the GM needs to be an expert with a lot of real world experience. That way, he can tell less experienced players (junior officers learning tactics and strategy) things like "That's actually a really good idea" or "Oh, sorry. I know that seems like it should work, but in actual practice what happens is..." or "Wow! That is... that is a terrible idea. I haven't seen anything that foolish since Kapitän Dumbkopf tried the same thing. It was so stupid, I can't even remember his real name. Everyone just calls him Dumbkopf.... All they found of him was one boot."

For a fantasy game, the GM need to be a very clear and consistent idea of how the fantasy world works. You can't just fall back on wishy washy cop-outs like "It's magic!" or "a wizard did it!" unless a wizard really did it and you know how do you can fairly adjudicate the PCs' responses to it.

[Tyrrell]

Something like this, but where you can know that Black Knights only have "thrust" and "parry", but not "dodge", and can plan your strategy accordingly? Hmmm... May I suggest Exalted?

In Exalted, player skill, knowing exactly what powers and weaknesses every style has would probably be huge.

In exalted, character power is still more important than player skill. A character with 150 xp spent to win fights run by an average player will beat a character who has only invested in a few violence applicable charms no matter how skilled the player running it is.

At least that's my experience.

Edit: experience with 3e. I never played 2e much.

[Quertus]

Except there's nothing to stop a character from having all of the perfect defenses, and indeed that was the go to strategy in all variations of 2e Exalted: the Turtle-Combo that could be used to perfect any and all attacks. 1e worked differently - the goal was to maximize persistent active defenses in order to make your character functionally unhittable in any way (the D&D equivalent is never leaving home without being buffed to the gills) and I believe 3e functions somewhat similarly (insofar as 3e is actually a game, which is not very).

The real problem Exalted 2e had was that all attacks either did 0 damage (negated via perfect, outright miss), 1 damage (fail to penetrate soak), or immediate death. Since the game was designed so that characters only had ~10 health levels total (and losing even half of them inflicted crippling wound penalties), taking any damage from an attack resulted in death very rapidly. This meant perfect defenses were far superior to any other defensive option. This was, ultimately, a problem created by how the Storyteller system's core mechanics interacted with high dice pool numbers, which is to say, they did not function (basic mechanical problems crippled Aberrant, Exalted, and Scion).

Scion, at least, had the ability to gain more than 10 health levels.

And is it really "wrong" to have a system where an attack that can significantly damage a huge Dragon can one-shot little human-sized things?

I haven't played Exalted much, but I think I can safely say that I've never played or seen a (PC) character with all 4 prefect defenses.

Even so, IIRC, there was no such thing as always applicable defenses. Every defense had a weakness - if you learned what those were, you could have a virgin use a hand-made weapon to hit the scion while riding at twilight or something, and none of their defenses would apply.

In exalted, character power is still more important than player skill. A character with 150 xp spent to win fights run by an average player will beat a character who has only invested in a few violence applicable charms no matter how skilled the player running it is.

At least that's my experience.

Edit: experience with 3e. I never played 2e much.

Hmmm... So, what you're saying is, players can lose the game, not exactly "at character creation", but at spending their XP stupidly? Well, ok, but the OP didn't specify that, they were asking about systems where metagaming vastly improves character performance. And Exalted seems to fit that bill.

Not that Exalted doesn't have its share of problems, mind, but, if the OP agrees that that's the kind of gameplay that they're looking for, maybe someone can recommend a better system that shares these traits.

[Segev]

... Aren't perfect defenses dodges, blocks, soaks, and, um, whatever else? Parrys, maybe? If they only have one prefect defense, and it's a dodge, cannot one use an undodgeable attack, or negate the conditions of their dodge, in order to hit them? Is that not the way that at least one edition of Exalted works?

Seven Shadow Evasion, which is the Solar perfect Dodge and rather easy to get, has text which says, essentially, "You perfectly dodge the attack you use this on, even if the attack is undodgeable."

That last clause is important, because the rules of Exalted (2E, I'm not discussing 3E because while I have the book, I'm not as intimately familiar with its rules) state as a hard and fast rule that, if you have an irresistible force meeting an immovable object, whichever one counts as "a defense" wins. This is to avoid the "infinity +1! infinity +2! infinity +infinitity x(infinity)^2!" waste of space that would arise from "tiers" of unblockable/block-even-unblockable. It settles it as "defense wins."

While this doesn't resolve every argument (and some designers tried to game this by pretending an attack was a defense so it could 'beat' a defense's applicability-clause), it resolves a LOT of them. Your undodgeable attack can still be dodged by Seven Shadow Evasion, no matter how powerful your undodgeable attack's undodgeability is.

[Morty]

In exalted, character power is still more important than player skill. A character with 150 xp spent to win fights run by an average player will beat a character who has only invested in a few violence applicable charms no matter how skilled the player running it is.

At least that's my experience.

Edit: experience with 3e. I never played 2e much.

I feel like we'd be hard-pressed to find a game where it is possible for player skill to make up for such a significant discrepancy in character skill. We'd be more likely to find a game where such discrepancy isn't possible. Speaking as someone who has likewise played 3e, as far as player skill vs. character skill goes, Exalted is honestly pretty typical. So probably not what the OP wants.

I also feel like pointing out that 3e combat is very different than the old editions. For one thing, there's no such thing as "perfect defence", at least not as a rules concept, and the initiative model was designed with the express purpose of avoiding the "whiff whiff splat" tendency.

[Lord Raziere]

The winning strategy in Exalted is to combine perfect attacks and perfect defenses until you are literally invincible and unblockable except by other invincible unblockable people, at which point all that matters is who runs out of blue juice first.

Yes and no. Isn't that kinda the "low skill" version of Exalted? Whereas the "high skill" version would be more like, "I see you are using Dark Sun style. You cannot block unless you are touching the ground, cannot dodge in sunlight... I see that you have combo'd your attack with a dodge... But, if I use an attack that cannot be dodged, can you still attack and block? If so, I need to remove you from the ground, then launch my unlockable attack".

Metagaming at its finest.

Sort-of, except that most PC perfect defenses can be used even against undodgeable and unblockable effects. And the flaws of invulnerability were poorly-enough designed that arranging to hit somebody when he can't use his defenses is nigh impossible.

Can the people who haven't read Exalted 3rd edition and still think 2e is here, the objectively worst edition by admittance of the entire fandom, please stop as if they know what they're talking about? really please stop, don't, just don't, we're not doing 2e anymore. no one wants 2e anymore. its just not a good edition.

Exalted 3e doesn't have perfect anything anymore and instead has a combat system where your fight by attacking each others Initiative to gain advantage, to get it low enough to make an actual decisive attack on someone with initiative basically representing how much advantage you have in battle.

but yeah, its the same as far as player skill goes.

[Segev]

Can the people who haven't read Exalted 3rd edition and still think 2e is here, the objectively worst edition by admittance of the entire fandom, please stop as if they know what they're talking about? really please stop, don't, just don't, we're not doing 2e anymore. no one wants 2e anymore. its just not a good edition.

Exalted 3e doesn't have perfect anything anymore and instead has a combat system where your fight by attacking each others Initiative to gain advantage, to get it low enough to make an actual decisive attack on someone with initiative basically representing how much advantage you have in battle.

but yeah, its the same as far as player skill goes.

This is an awfully unhelpful and arrogant post, Mr. Raziere. Exalted 2E does still exist, just as PF and D&D 3.5 still exist, and get discussed.

There's a reason I specified 2E: to be clear on what I was discussing. I am not calling anybody out for assuming 3e, nor for assuming 2E, but I think it not unreasonable to discuss both. A more useful response from you on this topic would have been something along the lines of, "Oh, well, in 3e, this is how it works..." rather than trying to insist that people are "wrong" for discussing a different edition than you were.

I doubt you're trying to pick a fight, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a better way to inject your core point (that you were talking about 3e, and didn't realize anybody else might still be discussing 2E) if you DID want to pick a fight, rather than have a civil discussion.

[Quertus]

Seven Shadow Evasion, which is the Solar perfect Dodge and rather easy to get, has text which says, essentially, "You perfectly dodge the attack you use this on, even if the attack is undodgeable."

Having never built and played a Solar Exalted, I was unaware of this.

Can the people who haven't read Exalted 3rd edition and still think 2e is here, the objectively worst edition by admittance of the entire fandom, please stop as if they know what they're talking about? really please stop, don't, just don't, we're not doing 2e anymore. no one wants 2e anymore. its just not a good edition.

Um, this is kinda.. well, I can't come up with a non-insulting adjective to describe this stance.

The OP wanted games that emphasized player skill - particular player skills, that I've dubbed metagaming.

2e Exalted meets this criterion. Therefore it is worth discussing - regardless of its merits as a game.

If 3e Exalted also meets these criteria, then, by all means, tell us about 3e. Uh, and the OP. Yes, tell the OP about 3e. That's what I meant.

[Segev]

On the subject of Exalted 2E and player/GM tactical skill, one lesson that the flaws in 2E taught me was how to run a fight that is interesting when the stakes don't generally include threat to the PCs' personal and physical well-being. Because it is so easy to make the usual "I roll, hit, and do X damage" exchange into, "I attack"/"I perfect defend," Exalted 2E combat is often dismissed as boring and unsatisfying.

The trick is the same here as it is in games where you don't want to have to threaten lethality all the time to make a fight feel exciting: have mutually exclusive goals between sides of combat that don't necessarily require the enemies' deaths to achieve. The most obvious, to me, being a fight over a macguffin. The One Ring can be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom, or used to restore the Dark Lord to full power by being brought to him and placed upon his finger. The heroes want to get away from the fight with the Ring so they can continue their trek to the volcano. The villains want to get the Ring and run back to the Dark Lord so they can put it on his finger. In any given fight, the goal is seizing the Ring and running off with it. Whoever wins the fight, the other side is motivated to pursue and attempt to take the Ring.

Escort missions, guard missions, races against time or against the enemy, and a number of other things become more exciting when the prospects of loss don't mean the end of the game due to TPK. The GM now can make things hard for the players' characters, because they CAN lose, and have it mean real consequences, without meaning the game's over. Threat of the end of the game means no threat at all, generally, as few GMs are willing to pull that trigger. And, if they are, it loses impact after the first or second time as players lose investment. But a major setback? Oh, that's something a GM can relish, and players need fear.

Exalted 2E, because the players are almost certainly nearly-invulnerable, required that I learn this. So, the mortal bandits can't TOUCH the Solar Invincible Sword Princess. But she's still just one woman, and they're attacking the caravan she's helping to guard. If they kill some beasts of burden to slow it down while they steal stuff, that's a partial loss for her, even if the bandits ultimately lose. If they steal stuff successfully, she's also lost, because her whole job was to prevent that. If they kill her friends in the caravan, that hurts personally. She's safe, but the fight still has stakes because she has things other than her life and limbs to lose.