How to write homebrew for Exalted 3e?

[arrowed]

tl;dr How do I write charms for antagonists?

Hi all, I don't post here much, but I'm looking at running a game of Exalted in the near future, and while I've got some plot, characters, and places written down, I'm not that experienced with the system.
What I'm struggling with is how to create anything approaching balance when writing Dragon Blooded, Abyssals, gods, etc. that aren't in the main book.
Does anyone have any advice about this? Should I make a few 'moves' as charms rather than giving them dice tricks or lots of charms that combo, or is there a better way?

Thanks in advance for any replies

[GrayDeath]

If you dont have much experience with the System, my suggestion is. DOnt.

Use 2.5 Exalted instead. WHile the Core MEchanics are much (in some cases eve much MUCH) worse, they have everything you could ever need AND rules how to add your own stuff in case its too special.
And FLuff thats much less....meh. (Exception: The "Affixture for Infernal Exaltations" to avoid names, that thing cant go and die quickly enough).
And a Book for everything and their Aunt.^^


Or, if you are unwilling to do that, just google and HOPE to heavens (ergo the Gods not Playing GODBox atm^^) that someone already made something similar.


Sadly, with fringe Systems like Exalted 3, you are almost always stuck on a frw online ressources and your own experience....:(

[Morty]

"Stop using the system you're using" is approximately the opposite of helpful. In an effort to actually be of some assistance... here is a repository of homebrew enemies I found on the Exalted Discord. Could be something there.

[Telwar]

For Abyssals, for the most part, you can get away with using Solar charms, just with a reskin of DEEEEEATTTHHHH. A good chunk of 2e Abyssal charms were literally mirrors of the Solar charms.

There is a 3e Dragon-blooded book out (What Fire Has Wrought) that you can use for their charms. Though they have a blue million charms to sort through, like the Solars.

One thing I did find interesting in the Dragon-blooded book is that for the stat blocks in the end, they don't have like full pages of charm names like 2e did, but instead have several charms statted out that the character is most likely to use, with the excellencies in the skills and attacks (like +2 for 2 motes, +6 for 6 motes, etc).

[arrowed]

Thanks for the replies, all
The bestiary looks very helpful, and I'll have a flick through Dragon Blooded.

[lightningcat]

There are several bestiaries for Exalted 3e on DriveThru. Both official, such as the Hundred Devils Night Parade and Adversaries of the Righteous lines. And unofficial, such as the Forgotten Fiends (pwyw), The Thousand Sanctioned Beasts, The Book of Laughing Serpents lines.
If you haven't done homebrewing for a system yet, it is often best to see what other homebrewers have done. Even better when you can figure out why they did it, but that doesn't seem to be easy to do with E3.

[Grod_The_Giant]

As a fellow new Ex3 GM, I feel your pain. There are a bunch of PDFs that sort of fill the roll of a Monster Manual, and you can always repurpose existing Charms. Abyssals are mostly palate-swapped Solars, so you can just give them a sprinkling of reflavored core Charms. The Dragonblooded book is out, and you can use those Charms for Terrestrial Exalts in particular and anything elemental-y in general. Martial Arts styles are useful collections of thematic Charms, but Arms of the Chosen might actually be the best source for that-- dozens of short little Charm tree built around a wide range of tight themes.

To be honest, though, I've tried using existing stuff and asking around and making up my own and... everything just sort of boils down to a long farting noise. The good news is that "balance" isn't really a thing; the bad news is that the reason it isn't really a thing is that the potential combat power of your players can be all over the damn map, and none of it has anything to do with what a standard human can do. There's not really much you can do except throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. I'll share some of my personal thoughts and experiences, for what it's worth.

• You need to be aware of how sensitive the combat system is to numbers. If you're outnumbered, you will die. You might literally die without so much as scratching a player. Unless the baddies literally can't hit you, the way that Initiative ties health and offensive power together basically dooms you-- you'll get punched down to the bottom of the initiative count, and if you don't manage to hit someone hard enough to get back to the top you're pretty much screwed. Boss battles have problems in a lot of systems, but I've never seen anything like trying to run one-vs-five in Ex3.
• The core game engine is crunchy as hell, and the player side of the game is delightfully and insanely detailed... but that doesn't mean you, as the GM, need to do the same thing. I'm a firm believer in making NPCs as simple as you can possibly get away with. I typically ignore motes of essence altogether. Anything that's just a question of "I roll higher" gets tossed aside in favor of of just making their base die pools bigger; Charms that are actually interesting, I give an Initiative or Willpower cost. Because of the above point, you're going to need to be running multiple enemies at once; the less you have to track the better.
• Make your players write their Charms down-- and ideally, if they're going to regularly use multiple Charms at once, write the details of the combination down too. You're all going to wind up doing a lot of looking stuff up.
• Don't use the craft rules. Don't use the craft Charms. Tear the pages out of your book and set them on fire; they're awful. (The base rules have a disgusting amount of pointless bookkeeping, and the Charms have like five interesting options mixed up with five hundred options that just twist and/or bypass the base crafting rules). Use a homebrew replacement like this instead.
• Starting as heroic mortals, or as Solars with Excellencies only, is a good idea. It gives you time to get the basics of the system down before you have to dig through ten million fiddly Charms.
• Assign one of your players to track Initiative and turn order. It feels weird letting go of that control, but it takes a big mental load off your shoulders.
• There's an attrition element to the game that the book doesn't really mention. If your Solars face one challenge a day, they'll blow it out of the water in a hurricane of essence and not even break a sweat. Make sure you've got longer adventuring days.

"Stop using the system you're using" is approximately the opposite of helpful. In an effort to actually be of some assistance... here is a repository of homebrew enemies I found on the Exalted Discord. Could be something there.

Oh man, you're my hero. That's going to be SO useful.