Behold, I give you the d20 Exalted- it is the lightning, it is the madness

[Grod_The_Giant]

Close your eyes and dream of the world as it was in its youth. Imagine a forgotten age of gleaming cities of stone and bronze; of heaving seas and demon-ridden storm-winds; of mighty heroes, blessed by the gods, and their wars which rent all Creation asunder. Dream of an age after the casting of the world from the stuff of chaos, after the fall of the first and greatest era of mankind, but before the gods and demons and their manifold champions van¬ished from reckoning. Imagine a flat world, floating atop the immensity of chaos. This is Creation in the Second Age of Man.

Spoiler: For the love of god, why?

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I really like Exalted, as a setting and as a style. I'd love to run and play more Exalted games, but alas, the system might be a bizarre, clunky mess. I ran one two-year Exalted 3e campaign with a group of just three players--experienced players, people I've been gaming with for more than a decade more--and it was... memorable. There were awesome moments, and there were moments of sheer befuddled pain, moments when we hit upon awesome mechanics and moments where we screamed at the book for having subsystems that fall apart the moment you poke them. By the time we wrapped things up, the players had advanced to the point that they were impossible to challenge without massive complicated multi-stage (and usually multi-week) battles, and my brain was well and truly broken.

(I'm not sure it's ever recovered, to tell the truth).

You can mostly use Mutants and Masterminds to run Exalted-style game, and I devoted way too much effort to make the conversion a little smoother. But you kind of needed to have a good grip on both Exalted themes and M&M's initially-impenetrable power creation system. What I really wanted was to run a game for my in-person (pandemic permitting) group, but they'd been confused enough last time we tried M&M for superheroes. Trying to have them create their own characters that actually fit a setting they've never seen before... no, thanks.

What I really needed, I decided, was some sort of unholy fusion of Exalted, M&M, and 5e. Something with all the flavor and madness of Exalted, the approachability of 5e, and the robust balancing and flexibility of M&M.

What I got was way too much free time over the holidays and a fresh new prescription for ADHD meds.

What you get is this.

Spoiler: How could you DO such a thing?

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Practically speaking, there were three facets to the project.

• First, I had to make M&M more familiar to people who've only played 5e. Hit points instead of toughness saves, streamlined math, and so on. The most central of which was probably the creation of a three-tiered proficiency system: low, medium, and high bonuses that were slipped in anywhere M&M would normally have a tradeoff. A medium weapon adds your medium bonus to attack and damage, for example, while a heavy weapon adds your minor to attack and major to damage. If you want a high Dodge save, one of your other saves is going to have to use the low bonus.
• Second, I had to expanded my D&Dified-M&M mess to include key features of Exalted--social conflict, anima, crafting, leadership, all that jazz.
• Third, and most insanely, charms. For each one, I took the Exalted flavor and mechanics and hammered it into M&M's effects-and-modifiers system until it either fit of shattered completely. From there, I sorted them into tiers of power based on their M&M costs--then shuffled them around again when the quirks of a superhero system left high-tier effects like Soul Projection Technique and Sometimes Horses Fly Approach dirt cheap. Finally, I pulled back and wrote out the effects in natural language as if they were 5e spells or class features, smoothing out awkward mechanical bumps and cracks in the process.

I wrote a d20 version of Exalted. In theory, it should have all the cool options and insane powers of Exalted (both in and out of combat) combined with the familiarity and ease-of-play of 5e D&D.

Spoiler: What do you want from us?

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Honestly...I don't really know. It's an absurdly long document; I'm not going to ask or expect anyone to do more than skim things. The most useful feedback would probably be to look at the core gameplay rules for combat and subsystems and suchlike and pointing out all the spots where my mechanics are unclear, clunky, or just plain bizarre in the eyes of people who aren't me.

2/16/2022: Add basic support for Dragon Blooded, Lunars, Sidereals, and Abyssals. No charms yet, but all the rules for how they work are in place... except for the charms themselves, but hey, that's not a big problem, right?
5/5/2022: After some playtesting, moved back towards M&M-style damage. Also general tweaks and improvements to language.

[Pandamonium]

Hi,
So I read through it all, not super thoroughly though but I glanced at it all.

There is a lot I like, I come from Exalted 2nd Edition myself and this seems to emulate 3rd edition?
Either that or that the underlying M&M engine shines through.

I think you nailed it to be honest :) as much as you can nail translating an insane power level system to something even close to DnD.
The mix isn't quite DnD but I don't think it could be done any other way.

It's really nice and even though I probably won't run it there are some merits, charms and martial arts styles that I might (will) rework (steal vigorously) to give to players as rewards through play.

I really appreciate the effort and the result is fantastic, well done!

[Cluedrew]

Why, How and What were definitely questions that came to mind. This sounds like the right type of madness to me. It might be slow but I'm definitely going to try and read over this and I will try to give you my thoughts as I go. You make me wonder what I could do if I had one hobby instead of about four.

[Yakk]

It is to laugh.

[Lord Raziere]

Okay, lets see if I can make a character with it, thats the first step to understanding any roleplaying system in my eyes.

Spoiler: Sukalpa, Dawn Caste

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Name: Sukalpa
Gender: Female
Exalted: Solar
Caste: Dawn Caste
Concept: Ninja Assassin

Skills: 0/20 boosts
Acrobatics: +10
Athletics +8
Awareness: +6
Bureaucracy
Craft
Guile: +10
Investigation: +6
Larceny: +8
Linguistics: +6
Lore
Medicine
Occult
Performance: +6
Presence: +6
Ride
Sail
Socialize: +6
Stealth: +10
War
Survival: +6

Supernal Skill: Martial Arts Merit, Ebon Shadow Style +10

Languages:
Riverspeak

Merits:
1-Martial Arts merit, Dreaming Pearl Courtesan Style
2-Martial Arts merit, Black Claw Style
3-Combat Stealth
4-Hide in Plain Sight
5-Attractive
6-Fast Reflexes

Money:
Equipment:
Shuriken
war fan
whip
tiger claws

Essence: 4
Proficiency:
-Minor: +6
-Moderate: +8
-Major: +10
Initiative:
Speed: 30ft
Strength:

Defenses:
AC: +10
Hitpoints: 60
Soak: +6
Damage:

Saving Throws:
Dodge: +8
Resistance: +8
Resolve: +8

Willpower: 8

Intimacies:
Major
-I Hate Tyranny
Moderate
-Lesbian Love Interest
Minor
-My Solar Circle
-I hate Slavery

Caste Abilities
Passive: intimidate any creature
Active: 1wp to turn successful attack into critical hit

Charms:
Stealth
-Major:
1-Shadow Replacement Technique
-Moderate
2-Shadow-Crossing Leap Technique

Ebon Shadow Style:
-Moderate:
1-Seven Points of Weakness Strike
-Minor:
2-Nothing But Shadows

Dreaming Pearl Courtesan:
Minor:
1-Demure Carp Feint
2-Elegant Weapon Repertoire

Black Claw:
Minor:
1-Open Palm Caress

Exp: 0/50exp
20 skill boosts, 10xp
6 merits, 6xp
7 charms, 33xp

Notes/nitpicks while I make the character:
-you split Athletics into Athletics/Acrobatics. Why? Acrobatics is conceptually useless without Athletics to back it up, thats why Exalted doesn't bother with making it a separate skill in the first place. I just find it weird that you did this, because no one is going to take just one or the other.
-you changed the currency for no reason to be dnd gold which is not how Creation works. there are actual in setting economic reasons why jade is used and why the Guild uses silver dinars, its all apart of the worldbuilding and thats not even getting into the cowrie shells used in the West, and why the normal Exalted system abstracts it out to be Resources, because the currencies being different is actually important and apart of the politics in play. kind of brings me out when the currency system doesn't match, not immersive.
-bookmarks to all the chapter starts would be nice, but thats just formatting
-another weird split I don't get is guile and larceny.
-there seems to be some math mistakes with the exp during character creation, your "recommended" amount of merits is 4 but those cost 6xp when one merit costs 1xp so it should 6 merits or 4xp, and 7 charms is 33exp, not 38

now that I'm done:
okay, I think I'm mostly done, and I'm getting some handle of this. the idea to make everything is interesting and seems like a good idea for showing different levels of power. I've probably made the character badly based on your reccommendations, but thats fine. seems mostly accurate, aside from my immersion iffyness about the currency being changed and some weird skill splits, this system seems fine so far, obviously I won't really be able to tell unless I can actually play it, but once I figured out character creation it works well, I'd this is accurately capturing an Exalt. I used the extra 5xp to get more skills instead because ninjas have a well-rounded skillset. give it some polish, I think this will work.

[Grod_The_Giant]

There is a lot I like, I come from Exalted 2nd Edition myself and this seems to emulate 3rd edition?

-you split Athletics into Athletics/Acrobatics. Why?

Without being able to distinguish between Str (Athletics) and Dex (Athletics), it felt necessary to have a mechanical split. Otherwise you get a weird effect where the hulking brute of a Dawn caste can dance along a clothesline and the Night caste ninja can bench-press the entire circle. Charms help distinguish this, but... I dunno. Maybe it would have made more sense to split off "brawn" as a separate skill?

-you changed the currency for no reason to be dnd gold which is not how Creation works.

I'll be honest here, I read the core book's section on money about three times in a row while working on this and it still never really made sense in my head. For the longest time I did use an abstract resources system (right out of the M&M GM's guide), but it was one of those points where I was worried about losing my friends who've only seen 5e. I'm certainly not convinced it's not worth going back to the abstraction.

-bookmarks to all the chapter starts would be nice, but thats just formatting

Huh, those should have been there...

-another weird split I don't get is guile and larceny.

Guile was split off from Socialize, actually--originally because I needed it as a separate defense, and later because Socialize was just too all-encompassing a skill. When I was working on charmsets, I usually had to stretch to get to my standard of 14-15 charms. With Socialize, even after the split I had no trouble filling two charmsets.

-there seems to be some math mistakes with the exp during character creation, your "recommended" amount of merits is 4 but those cost 6xp when one merit costs 1xp so it should 6 merits or 4xp, and 7 charms is 33exp, not 38

Whoops. Thanks for catching that.

obviously I won't really be able to tell unless I can actually play it, but once I figured out character creation it works well, I'd this is accurately capturing an Exalt... give it some polish, I think this will work.

Huzzah! Thanks for spending so much time looking over things, I really appreciate it.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah but, Creation still doesn't use gold/silver/iron currency. if I were making it, I'd do the actual setting currency since this won't make any sense with Creation's actual setting, because the Realm and the Guild having separate currencies is apart of their power dynamics and politics, they can't just agree to use the same currency, they're competitors vying for dominance over the Threshold while cowrie shells are a completely separate currency because the West is isolated from everyone else. this currency system doesn't work as an actual in setting thing, and it will only get worse when you get into Sidereals, because their wealth just breaks normal Creation economy over their knee due to using the Ambrosia of Yu-shan instead. there are actual in setting laws in Yu-shan about Sidereals not being allowed to use this wealth in certain ways so that normal Creations economy doesn't get destroyed. and the gods are corrupt, so its not like there is always going to be perfect upstanding divine cops to prevent that sort of abuse.

I'm also curious how you'd handle the Lunars and Alchemicals flexibility since there is no attributes, but I guess its possible by having charms that tie a few skills into being enhanced by one thing or whatever as package.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Yeah but, Creation still doesn't use gold/silver/iron currency. if I were making it, I'd do the actual setting currency since this won't make any sense with Creation's actual setting, because the Realm and the Guild having separate currencies is apart of their power dynamics and politics, they can't just agree to use the same currency, they're competitors vying for dominance over the Threshold while cowrie shells are a completely separate currency because the West is isolated from everyone else. this currency system doesn't work as an actual in setting thing, and it will only get worse when you get into Sidereals, because their wealth just breaks normal Creation economy over their knee due to using the Ambrosia of Yu-shan instead. there are actual in setting laws in Yu-shan about Sidereals not being allowed to use this wealth in certain ways so that normal Creations economy doesn't get destroyed. and the gods are corrupt, so its not like there is always going to be perfect upstanding divine cops to prevent that sort of abuse.

Fair enough, I'll take a second stab at the abstract system. Last time I stalled out trying to come up with a systematic rule for gaining wealth.

I'm also curious how you'd handle the Lunars and Alchemicals flexibility since there is no attributes, but I guess its possible by having charms that tie a few skills into being enhanced by one thing or whatever as package.

Off the top of my head...

For Lunars, I think I'd keep the attributes as broad categories for their charmsets, instead of skills, and just not worry about their corresponding to a number on your character sheet. Maybe pick 2 favored attributes where you can learn any charm, another 2 where you're limited to moderate charms, 2 where you're limited to minor charms, and the remaining 3 you can't learn charms at all. With a merit allowing you to upgrade attributes to a higher level of favored-ness so you can learn more powerful charms. Their excellency would be smaller than a Solar's (I think right now it's +2/+5/+10) but apply to any check.

For Alchemicals, I'd probably go for something akin to the 5e Wizard-- you can learn charms more cheaply than other Exalts, but can only have so many installed at a time.

[Yakk]

For Wealth, one very D&D approach might be to treat it like XP/levels.

I mean, realistically, wealth in the form of a huge pile of gold coins is a bit stupid. Turning said coins into "real wealth" involves investing it in an endeavor. The level of the investment, including leveling it up, is then something practical and useful.

This even works for buying magic items in a non-"magic mart"-world; building up a reputation or a network to find magic items to buy is an investment.

It also segways into castles, kingdoms, churches, and armies naturally.

Instead of XP, you might have RP (resource points). You could have classes of investments and effects at each level and a RP table (which, for simplicities sake, I'd just duplicate the XP table).

The value (in RP) of gold coins, trade notes, ancient gems, reputation in the royal court, jade coins or whatever to RP becomes a thing. Some resources might be worth more to certain "endeavor classes". Converting wealth from one kind of RP to another is lossy by default (ie, RP in coins might only buy half as many RP in court reputation, and vice versa).

[Grod_The_Giant]

It also segways into castles, kingdoms, churches, and armies naturally.

Instead of XP, you might have RP (resource points). You could have classes of investments and effects at each level and a RP table (which, for simplicities sake, I'd just duplicate the XP table).

The value (in RP) of gold coins, trade notes, ancient gems, reputation in the royal court, jade coins or whatever to RP becomes a thing. Some resources might be worth more to certain "endeavor classes". Converting wealth from one kind of RP to another is lossy by default (ie, RP in coins might only buy half as many RP in court reputation, and vice versa).

Hmm... not that, but something like that.

I actually have rules for castles and churches and armies and suchlike, which revolve around creating, manipulating, and exploiting "assets" (it's basically just the social influence rules with a different skin), and it occurs to me that might actually be a smooth way of handling things. Assets already represent some forms of wealth--a silver mine could easily be an asset, for example-- so it makes a certain amount of sense to just go whole-hog and say "you're rewarded with ten pounds of jade, enough to count as a minor asset."

[Lord Raziere]

Fair enough, I'll take a second stab at the abstract system. Last time I stalled out trying to come up with a systematic rule for gaining wealth.

I mean, if you want to.

if your intending this for your 5e friends, I'd say just designed hard wealth just for the different currencies in the actual setting as an optional rule if they want to get into that and treat the current wealth as abstract value rather than what is actually being exchanged.

my point is that the Exalted setting has a lot of real world ancient economics stuff in it and is actually supposed to be important because that economics stuff is big part of what Exalts like the Eclipse caste does. the Eclipse can be played as an ambassador or politician at their most altruistic, but they can also be merchants, con-men, bankers, traders and so on and so forth because they are any person that make a living making deals with people and society is just a very large extended agreement over to how to behave in some sense. thus things like whether the currency is being debased, which currency they are backing, how much money is in the treasury and have we paid our war debts, does this nation accept this as a form of payment and how can I persuade them to accept the deal if they don't, and such and so on, are actually pretty important things for Exalts like the Eclipse caste to think about. its a bit of realism and complexity you don't get in DnD that makes it stand out, because the Eclipse Caste is supposed to actually use and interact with this sociological/bureaucratic stuff as an actual lever of power and influence rather than just being a thing that PCs can't touch because they are vagabond adventurers.

so its more of a warning how such things kind of mess with those kinds of players who might want to play an Eclipse Caste and not fight because they are this wealthy negotiator mastermind who can destroy an economy through shenanigans. so just be aware thats what your doing.

[Cluedrew]

Chapter 2 (Skipped Chapter 1 because of what you asked to focus on):

• I feel you are leaning into "as compared to D&D" a bit much. Now, I haven't actually played a game of D&D in several years so maybe it would flow more naturally for someone who is up to date but I found myself just trying to skip over all the comparisons for the direct descriptions.
• I had a lot of weird musings about the modifiers (could you use a custom chart instead of a formula, they feel a bit sharp at low levels, is it actually reasonable to make a set of gold/silver/bronze dice (no, there are ten levels)). But the most useful one is: How about an index card sized reference with all the modifiers for easy reference? You might even be able to fit the intimacy modifiers on the same table.
• Skills: Are there rules about when these high level examples start to kick in? It seems pretty important. For medicine: What is "on-the-spot first aid"? Also how do you get them? A lot of the other things included instructions about how to get them or choose them and I didn't see any for the skills.
• Are your three saves fixed after character creation? ... Yeah I can't see a reasonable way to change them.

Not a lot, between time and the fact the chapter is solid, I would give this a spin if I had a group. And didn't have a backlog.

---

It is to laugh.

It is to feel my wrath.

I'm not even sure where that is from.

[Grod_The_Giant]

so its more of a warning how such things kind of mess with those kinds of players who might want to play an Eclipse Caste and not fight because they are this wealthy negotiator mastermind who can destroy an economy through shenanigans. so just be aware thats what your doing.

Hopefully the Leadership rules still provide ample opportunity for this sort of thing. (They work sorta like social influence, with "assets" like armies and trading guilds instead of intimacies)

Chapter 2 (Skipped Chapter 1 because of what you asked to focus on):[LIST][*]I feel you are leaning into "as compared to D&D" a bit much. Now, I haven't actually played a game of D&D in several years so maybe it would flow more naturally for someone who is up to date but I found myself just trying to skip over all the comparisons for the direct descriptions.

That's fair--I'll try to cut back on that a bit.

[*]I had a lot of weird musings about the modifiers (could you use a custom chart instead of a formula, they feel a bit sharp at low levels, is it actually reasonable to make a set of gold/silver/bronze dice (no, there are ten levels)). But the most useful one is: How about an index card sized reference with all the modifiers for easy reference? You might even be able to fit the intimacy modifiers on the same table.

There's a table in the Proficiencies section, and the "fully explained" character sheet and cheat sheet both have the formulas listed.

[*]Skills: Are there rules about when these high level examples start to kick in? It seems pretty important. For medicine: What is "on-the-spot first aid"? Also how do you get them? A lot of the other things included instructions about how to get them or choose them and I didn't see any for the skills.

...you know what, I see the confusion. Sorry, those "a Solar whatever" excerpts refer to charms associated with that skill. I'll go back and make that more clear.

[*]Are your three saves fixed after character creation? ... Yeah I can't see a reasonable way to change them.

There are retraining rules in the back of the character creation chapter.

Not a lot, between time and the fact the chapter is solid, I would give this a spin if I had a group. And didn't have a backlog.

Thanks!

[Grod_The_Giant]

Behold, having done a bit of playtesting I give you a small update.

• Stunts are changed a bit-- the GM gives a +2 bonus for a cool stunt, and each player gets 1wp to hand to someone else as a reward for a stunt they particularly enjoyed.
• Impact has been tweaked. Instead of being dazed, the victim gets to choose between being pushed back or losing movement for the next round being left vulnerable against the next attack. (It turns out that players hit with impact often enough that some enemies spend most of the encounter stuck being dazed)
• "Organizations" changed to "empires," and become a bit more all-inclusive.
• Wealth is abstract once again, and tied to the assets of your empire.

And, perhaps most excitingly, the core rules for Lunars are now included. You'll still have to build the charms yourself, but all the stuff that's not straight-M&M-power-creation is there for the taking.

[Yakk]

Behold, having done a bit of playtesting I give you a small update.

• Stunts are changed a bit-- the GM gives a +2 bonus for a cool stunt, and each player gets 1wp to hand to someone else as a reward for a stunt they particularly enjoyed.
• Impact has been tweaked. Instead of being dazed, the victim gets to choose between being pushed back or losing movement for the next round. (It turns out that players hit with impact often enough that some enemies spend most of the encounter stuck being dazed)
• "Organizations" changed to "empires," and become a bit more all-inclusive.
• Wealth is abstract once again, and tied to the assets of your empire.

And, perhaps most excitingly, the core rules for Lunars are now included. You'll still have to build the charms yourself, but all the stuff that's not straight-M&M-power-creation is there for the taking.

Dice are fun: make the stunt bonus be 1d4.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Dice are fun: make the stunt bonus be 1d4.

Mmm... Yeah, I think you're right.

[paladinn]

I've honestly never played Exalted, but it looks super cool (pun not intended). I was somewhat a fan of M&M 1e and 2e; but when 3e went off the D20 reservation in a number of ways, I dropped off.

I've long wanted a Supers game that was fairly D&D-compatible. M&M was kind of close; but the best I found was Silver Age Sentinels D20. Unfortunately it was dropped and hasn't been developed further.

I wonder if there is anything in SAS that might be of use to you in your efforts?

Excelsior! (We all miss Stan Lee!)

[Quellian-dyrae]

I skipped the setting stuff at the beginning, and read through to the end of the Combat chapter; I might take a further look later opportunity permitting. It's looking good so far! Assume that there are various things I think are actively good and praiseworthy decisions but I'm not mentioning explicitly because "This is good and probably doesn't need any review unless I'm missing something" is not actionable intelligence.

For reference I have a vague familiarity with Exalted 2e and D&D 5e (enough that I can put things into context; I know what advantage/disadvantage means, what a Charm is, etc), and extensive experience with M&M. Having not read the entire document yet and definitely not internalized any of its interactions and synergies, assume my assessments are highly biased towards M&Mish mechanics aside from where I can clearly see that they're more D&Dish or Exaltedish. I also haven't read other reviewing posts so apologies if I'm retreading ground already covered.

For the time being, most of what I have to say centers around the conditions:

Are saves checks? Going by context they aren't, but I'm not sure (might have just missed it though, or it might be a D&Dism that is above my knowledge threshold), and it matters for some conditions; in M&M, Impaired affecting resistance checks put it in balance with Vulnerable, while in these rules Impaired becomes significantly more powerful than Vulnerable if saves are treated as checks. However, Disabled becomes significantly weaker than Stunned if saves aren't treated as checks (although maybe less so if recovery checks still exist - I don't recall seeing them in the Combat chapter but what do I know maybe they're in Charms or something - but even then that gain would get eaten by Stunned also auto-inflicting Prone).

Actually on that subject Stunned is probably a strong enough condition on its face to not need the help of auto-prone.

My general sense from an M&M standpoint is that balance would be better if Entranced and Asleep were tier 2 and 3 conditions with a Limit (kinda a variant on Instant Recovery) rather than getting a full tier reduction. I suspect this is probably true here as well. But my instinct based on M&M experience is you'd probably be better served by changing Entranced/Asleep/Incapacitated effects (or whatever) to Dazed/Stunned/Incapacitated effects that can be broken by threats or ally actions, but have some additional "extra" worth of power to make up for it.

Compelled and Controlled remain largely as overpowered for their tier as in M&M (although your Disadvantage on checks you don't want to make is a much better restriction on Compelled than M&M's Dazed; it doesn't change the fact that "Forced to do what an enemy wants, albeit at a penalty" is strictly more severe than "Unable to take actions at all". My naive advice would be similar to Entanced/Asleep; make Compelled a Major condition, and then treat "This effect can create compulsions so powerful that you cannot even present enough resistance to force disadvantage on checks you don't want to make" as the equivalent of an extra. Or actually, some interaction with Willpower might be sensible, albeit at a cost in additional complexity. Like, as long as you have Willpower at all you can impose the disadvantage, if you have 0 wp you can't, and you can spend a point of wp to act normally for one round (or maybe act normally for one round and get a new save to throw off the compulsion entirely).

I saw Concealment but not Full Concealment at the time of this writing; unless Full Concealment is significantly more severe than in M&M, Unaware should probably be a Moderate condition. Assuming it entails some level of both offensive and defensive hindrance, it can compete with Stunned but obviously not Incapacitated (which makes you entirely unaware of your surroundings among other, much worse, things).

I can conceive of certain very specific circumstances where I would choose to take a Vulnerable for one attack rather than being pushed back ten feet (such as something dangerous ten feet behind me, or I'm Immobilized or need sufficient movement that I can't afford the ten feet to close and only have melee attacks, or possibly if I'm mounted). But especially given the game explicitly mentions tactical positioning being less significant than in D&D, in the vast majority of cases Impact is going to be pushback. I'm not necessarily sure this means you need to make the pushback option "more competitive" (although off the top of my head something like also having disadvantage on attack rolls and physical checks on your next turn would probably do it, if you wanted to go that route), but I'd maybe write it as the default with Vulnerable being something you can accept if you desperately need to not be pushed back ten feet right now.

While I'm not bothering with most typos and such, I did notice a few typos or editing issues or such that I thought might cause occasional confusion. I think the intent is easy enough to figure out, but does require figuring it out, so they seemed worth reporting.
-In the summary of differences between Ex20 and D&D in the Combat chapter, it says you can take any number of reactions. In the actual Actions section it says one per turn.
-Battle groups says to add the group's size modifier to soak, and then in the next sentence says soak does not change.
-Slightly confusing in the Battle Groups and Health section, it says to reduce the size modifier by one tier, which if I'm understanding right means lowering +5 to +2 to +1 to +0, but then specifies changes to their group tier based on the numbers. I'm not sure if this is just a clarification or meant to indicate that the size bonus should be reduced by 1 rather than one tier. In the former case it might be written more naturally as just that they reform one size category smaller or something.
-The DC to avoid falling if your mount goes down is 10+[tier of triggering effect]. I assume that's supposed to bonus?
-...This won't actually confuse anyone in play or anything, but is it actually the hep action rather than help? I assumed that was just a typo but then I saw it again in the minions section and now I need to know.

[Grod_The_Giant]

After some basic playtesting, I'm ready to risk saying this feels really good at the table. Turns moved fast even with 5e-only players, soak and damage and hp have behaved well so far, no-one seemed to be confused about how to use their charms, and even the most mechanically clumsy person was able to get through character creation on their own without many issues. Very, very pleased so far.

I wonder if there is anything in SAS that might be of use to you in your efforts?

SAS has been on my "games worth check out sometime" list for a while, but I'm not sure there's really anything I could pull, at least for the project as it currently stands. Exalted gives all the flavor and special abilities, and trying to add a fourth system into the base rules would be... problematic.

That said, you could turn this into a superhero game pretty... safely, I guess, is the right word? You wouldn't need to do anything to the base rules, apart from dropping anima, but you'd probably want to replace a lot of charms. Which isn't hard, exactly--they're still roughly M&M powers, just rewritten as complete units--but would take a long time.

It's looking good so far! Assume that there are various things I think are actively good and praiseworthy decisions but I'm not mentioning explicitly because "This is good and probably doesn't need any review unless I'm missing something" is not actionable intelligence.

But it's great for my ego

For reference I have a vague familiarity with Exalted 2e and D&D 5e (enough that I can put things into context; I know what advantage/disadvantage means, what a Charm is, etc), and extensive experience with M&M. Having not read the entire document yet and definitely not internalized any of its interactions and synergies, assume my assessments are highly biased towards M&Mish mechanics aside from where I can clearly see that they're more D&Dish or Exaltedish. I also haven't read other reviewing posts so apologies if I'm retreading ground already covered.

That's fair enough, and M&M is certainly the mechanical heart of the system. There are a couple houserules, and the math behind power level limits and tradeoffs is effectively hidden, but Ex20 is probably 98% compatible with M&M.

Are saves checks?

They are not-- checks, saving throws, and attacks are distinct categories, mostly so I could have skill-boosting stuff without messing up combat math. I'll work on making that clearer.

However, Disabled becomes significantly weaker than Stunned if saves aren't treated as checks (although maybe less so if recovery checks still exist - I don't recall seeing them in the Combat chapter but what do I know maybe they're in Charms or something - but even then that gain would get eaten by Stunned also auto-inflicting Prone).

Mmm. You're not wrong.

Actually on that subject Stunned is probably a strong enough condition on its face to not need the help of auto-prone.

I added prone because it always kind of bugged me that Stunned would leave you too incapacitated to so much as think at someone, but yet somehow also remain standing up.

My general sense from an M&M standpoint is that balance would be better if Entranced and Asleep were tier 2 and 3 conditions with a Limit (kinda a variant on Instant Recovery) rather than getting a full tier reduction. I suspect this is probably true here as well. But my instinct based on M&M experience is you'd probably be better served by changing Entranced/Asleep/Incapacitated effects (or whatever) to Dazed/Stunned/Incapacitated effects that can be broken by threats or ally actions, but have some additional "extra" worth of power to make up for it.

I want to keep Entranced around as a tier 1 condition because of how useful it is for social stuff-- replacing it with dazed-with-these-limits would lead to a lot of redundant language in the Charms section.

Compelled and Controlled remain largely as overpowered for their tier as in M&M (although your Disadvantage on checks you don't want to make is a much better restriction on Compelled than M&M's Dazed; it doesn't change the fact that "Forced to do what an enemy wants, albeit at a penalty" is strictly more severe than "Unable to take actions at all". My naive advice would be similar to Entanced/Asleep; make Compelled a Major condition, and then treat "This effect can create compulsions so powerful that you cannot even present enough resistance to force disadvantage on checks you don't want to make" as the equivalent of an extra. Or actually, some interaction with Willpower might be sensible, albeit at a cost in additional complexity. Like, as long as you have Willpower at all you can impose the disadvantage, if you have 0 wp you can't, and you can spend a point of wp to act normally for one round (or maybe act normally for one round and get a new save to throw off the compulsion entirely).

Maybe they should be taken out altogether, come to think. There are only a handful of effects that use open-ended mind control-- most times I used compelled in charms it was for very specific actions, like "compelled to keep eating" or "compelled to talk about their feelings."

I saw Concealment but not Full Concealment at the time of this writing; unless Full Concealment is significantly more severe than in M&M, Unaware should probably be a Moderate condition. Assuming it entails some level of both offensive and defensive hindrance, it can compete with Stunned but obviously not Incapacitated (which makes you entirely unaware of your surroundings among other, much worse, things).

Good call.

I can conceive of certain very specific circumstances where I would choose to take a Vulnerable for one attack rather than being pushed back ten feet (such as something dangerous ten feet behind me, or I'm Immobilized or need sufficient movement that I can't afford the ten feet to close and only have melee attacks, or possibly if I'm mounted). But especially given the game explicitly mentions tactical positioning being less significant than in D&D, in the vast majority of cases Impact is going to be pushback. I'm not necessarily sure this means you need to make the pushback option "more competitive" (although off the top of my head something like also having disadvantage on attack rolls and physical checks on your next turn would probably do it, if you wanted to go that route), but I'd maybe write it as the default with Vulnerable being something you can accept if you desperately need to not be pushed back ten feet right now.

Makes sense. I added the impact mechanic pretty much for the sole purpose of knocking characters around the battlefield, and I've never been quite satisfied with any simple alternatives. (I've got some complicated ones, like immobilizing someone by pinning them to the floor with your spear, but those got shifted to being optional merits because, you know...complicated)

While I'm not bothering with most typos and such, I did notice a few typos or editing issues or such that I thought might cause occasional confusion. I think the intent is easy enough to figure out, but does require figuring it out, so they seemed worth reporting.

Thanks for the catches.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Okay, read the social chapter, and social systems are one of those things I have Opinions on, so here's some rambling thoughts which hopefully contain at least something vaguely useful somewhere.

Social systems are tough. This is one of the more solid ones I've seen, and I think it clearly beats M&M's and D&D's (not that either of those is a high bar, to be fair), and Exalted 2e's (although again to be fair I have a strong bias against "social combat" systems - that phrase does get used here, but this feels to me like a regular social skill system, as compared to say Fate or Exalted 2e being explicitly social combat systems). I'm not familiar with Exalted 3e's but my understanding is it also uses Intimacies, so I can't say how it compares there.

My own personal preferences lean even somewhat further towards the "limit the amount of influence social skills can exert" side than this, though definitely this system does have a lot of mechanics ensuring buy-in and generally reasonable argument and escape hatches, all of which are very good. So consider me a bit biased here, but mostly my suggestions involve taking those things a bit further, or clarifying some things where the rules might be interpreted as overshadowing the narrative.

Also, as a general disclaimer, all these suggestions are with regards to normal social skills, operating under a "social skills aren't magic" paradigm. I am aware that in Exalted social skills can very much be magic - as long as such things are properly considered supernatural mental manipulation, I would fully expect them to be able to go well beyond what mundane social skills can accomplish and wouldn't particularly worry about player agency concerns, beyond the usual bits you always get with mind control mechanics.

So, those disclaimers and biases noted:

If my understanding is correct, you get a check bonus based on the size of the Intimacy you target, but also an Intimacy of a certain size is a prerequisite for more powerful social influences. I may have misread or missed something, but it sounds like if say the mortal soldier you are trying to convince to hold off a horde of demons has a Major Intimacy to his village, and you tell him if he doesn't buy you some time these demons are going to roll through and slaughter that village, you not only meet the prerequisite for potentially convincing him to undertake a suicide mission, you also get +10 to the check to do it. I think the check bonus should be for levels of Intimacy in excess of the minimum (with the full bonus being on things they...are resisting but aren't important enough to them to require an Intimacy, I guess? Your basic, "Eh, roll a Persuasion check and we'll see" sort of thing.) This way...yeah, his devotion to his village might be enough to convince him to go on a suicide mission, but that's still something of a tough sell, while using that big of an Intimacy on a much less significant issue would come with a big bonus. Although on reflection I realize the expectation might be that he would oppose with his Major Intimacy: My Life so his +10 counters yours, in which case that probably works and I'm overthinking things. ...But then wouldn't he also use that to oppose an attempt to get him to merely take a risk to his life? Hrm.

The Decision Points rule is cool, and I think I get its intent. Bad guy persuades a PC to do something, their player actually wants them not to do it, another player persuades them not to do it, you don't want that to be too easy. But I feel like as written it could be used proactively as a sort of "social defense" mechanic, which I'm not sure is actually the intent (and it seems like it might be overpowered for even if it is). I don't have any object-level suggestions here, just a hunch that this may be worth reviewing.

How long does Influence last? I assume like the scene or something, but it's probably worth noting explicitly and if it's meant to be permanent or even like Saga-duration or something I'd definitely drop that down. I can imagine someone influencing my character to temporarily put more or less weight on a particular Intimacy, but causing a permanent or long-term change to what my character cares about I think goes too far for mere social skills, doubly so if the same Intimacy can be Influenced multiple times, which also might be worth clarifying. I would actually find that sort of long-term change to my Intimacies to be a much greater violation of player agency than having my character convinced to do something I don't otherwise want them to do, all else being equal.

Just in general I think I would toughen up the requirements for targeting an Intimacy to something along the lines that the player of the targeted character (the GM in the case of an NPC) has to agree that the approach "meets their standards" for using that Intimacy to achieve that result (direct veto by controlling player probably isn't the best or only way to do it, but in any event some guidelines along these lines). This is kinda like the Red Rule (which does do good work) but goes a bit further; there might be things that I'm not uncomfortable with per se, but where if that particular argument convinced my character to do that particular thing (possibly, in that particular circumstance), I would feel that the mechanics are forcing me to play my character falsely, which I think is a result that a good social system should never output. I suppose you could just invoke Red Rule for this stuff - "I feel this is violating my conception of my character" probably reasonably qualifies as discomfort for these purposes - but...I dunno, I feel like this is much more...banal than a Red Rule invocation, if that makes sense? Like, Red Rule feels to me like an Emergency Abort Button, while this is more about adding an extra layer of common sense against the social system outputting incorrect results.

Spoiler: Clarifying Examples Because That Was Very Vague And Rambly

Show

Say we have a character who has a Major Intimacy to their family. The big bad Abyssal Warlord threatens to horrifically kill their family in front of them if they don't let him go. On its face, I would expect this to qualify as a threat against a Major Intimacy.

But it is a very different thing if we are facing off in my front yard or at least my home town, if we're fighting in a random dungeon and this is the first time we've met, or if he's already been defeated, bound in unbreakable blessed chains forged by blah blah etc, imprisoned in a...something...something...security Charms? Whatever, basically no longer a threat by any reasonable standpoint.

In the first case, yep, that is totes a legit threat on a Major Intimacy. I mean, I might be able to stop him, sure, but there is no question he is in the position to potentially carry out that threat. I may want my character to fight anyway, I may even be confident I can both win and prevent him from hurting them, but I would consider it reasonable if the social system said, "Nope, if you want to fight under that level of threat to something that important to you, it's gonna cost you some Willpower."

In the second situation...iiiiit's pretty iffy. He's definitely not in a position to do it immediately, and maybe not at all, 'specially if I win. I have no reason to believe he has any idea who or where my family are; the threat lacks credibility. I could see it in principle, but I think I'd need more supporting evidence, or maybe a supplemental Intimacy like Need for Safety or Paranoia, indicating buy-in for my character overreacting to threats even if they aren't entirely credible. If he was a mind reader say, so in theory if I lost this fight, he'd be able to bind me, mind read me, learn where my family is, and drag me off to watch them die, then we're getting somewhere.

In the third situation, if I don't have some sort of Gullible Idiot, uh...In- Intimacy? Do regular Complications exist? In M&M it'd be a Quirk Complication. Not important. I don't care what his social skills are, I'm laughing in his face. He does not have the leverage to make that threat against that Intimacy in this situation, at least not to achieve that result - it could work to, say, provoke me into punching him in the jaw, or something. Maybe get me to rant about all the security measures we have making sure there's no way he will ever have a chance to even try. But in terms of getting me to let him go, his approach is invalid.

Similarly, even if my character has an Intimacy to their, like, Pride or something, if someone's trying to provoke me into attacking them or getting in their face or something, I would expect them to come with something more than like a cheap schoolyard insult or whatever. Heck, I don't even care if the actual words are glossed over, "He starts, just, absolutely reaming you with insults. The things he says about you don't bear repeating. And the things he says about your mother, oh man..." Yeah, I'm chill with that targeting my Pride intimacy, and treating the social skill check as an indicator of how sickly my character is being burned. But if they just come at me with something like, "Hey, loser! Yeah, you! You're a loser!" it's like...responding to something that lame would be a bigger offense to my Pride than the "insult" itself is, you know?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm not familiar with Exalted 3e's but my understanding is it also uses Intimacies, so I can't say how it compares there.

It's exactly the same. Apart from adjusting the modifiers for a d20 system and renaming "instill" to "influence," these are point-by-point the exact same rules as 3e Exalted uses.

If my understanding is correct, you get a check bonus based on the size of the Intimacy you target, but also an Intimacy of a certain size is a prerequisite for more powerful social influences. I may have misread or missed something, but it sounds like if say the mortal soldier you are trying to convince to hold off a horde of demons has a Major Intimacy to his village, and you tell him if he doesn't buy you some time these demons are going to roll through and slaughter that village, you not only meet the prerequisite for potentially convincing him to undertake a suicide mission, you also get +10 to the check to do it. I think the check bonus should be for levels of Intimacy in excess of the minimum (with the full bonus being on things they...are resisting but aren't important enough to them to require an Intimacy, I guess? Your basic, "Eh, roll a Persuasion check and we'll see" sort of thing.) This way...yeah, his devotion to his village might be enough to convince him to go on a suicide mission, but that's still something of a tough sell, while using that big of an Intimacy on a much less significant issue would come with a big bonus. Although on reflection I realize the expectation might be that he would oppose with his Major Intimacy: My Life so his +10 counters yours, in which case that probably works and I'm overthinking things. ...But then wouldn't he also use that to oppose an attempt to get him to merely take a risk to his life? Hrm.

Hmm... now that you bring it up, it might make sense to say that the intimacy you're targeting with a persuade action doesn't apply a modifier to resolve. You're already taking advantage of those feelings to make the request; also applying them as a resolve penalty would kind of be double-dipping.

The typical assumption is that a given individual only has a handful of intimacies. Even a minor intimacy is a significant commitment--the sort of thing that forms a noticeable part of your self-image. You don't just believe, you're a Religious Person. You don't just love your partner, you would be lost without them. Most people in Creation probably don't have any moderate or major intimacies. So...yeah, it's definitely not expected that they'll be able to draw on an equally-strong intimacy to resist.

The Decision Points rule is cool, and I think I get its intent. Bad guy persuades a PC to do something, their player actually wants them not to do it, another player persuades them not to do it, you don't want that to be too easy. But I feel like as written it could be used proactively as a sort of "social defense" mechanic, which I'm not sure is actually the intent (and it seems like it might be overpowered for even if it is). I don't have any object-level suggestions here, just a hunch that this may be worth reviewing.

So you're thinking that what, I Persuade my friend that our goal is important before going to the party, so that they go into a Decision Point as soon as someone tries to stop them? Hmm... on the one hand, I can see how that would be an exploit; on the other hand, I can see how it would make narrative sense. And there's something to be said for the socialite being able to defend their own allies... but that could also be modeled as an influence attempt. Maybe I'll just drop the willpower stuff and just say that a character has advantage on resolve checks to resist counter-persuasion. I also seem to have conflated a couple different terms from Exalted, which probably doesn't help matters.

How long does Influence last? I assume like the scene or something, but it's probably worth noting explicitly and if it's meant to be permanent or even like Saga-duration or something I'd definitely drop that down. I can imagine someone influencing my character to temporarily put more or less weight on a particular Intimacy, but causing a permanent or long-term change to what my character cares about I think goes too far for mere social skills, doubly so if the same Intimacy can be Influenced multiple times, which also might be worth clarifying. I would actually find that sort of long-term change to my Intimacies to be a much greater violation of player agency than having my character convinced to do something I don't otherwise want them to do, all else being equal.

That's on me; I had to go digging to figure out where I left that rule . It's a Fate type deal, where you can shift the strength of an intimacy around at the end of a session/period of downtime. Though maybe I'll add a second save at the end of the scene to immediately shift an intimacy one step back towards normal.

Just in general I think I would toughen up the requirements for targeting an Intimacy to something along the lines that the player of the targeted character (the GM in the case of an NPC) has to agree that the approach "meets their standards" for using that Intimacy to achieve that result (direct veto by controlling player probably isn't the best or only way to do it, but in any event some guidelines along these lines). This is kinda like the Red Rule (which does do good work) but goes a bit further; there might be things that I'm not uncomfortable with per se, but where if that particular argument convinced my character to do that particular thing (possibly, in that particular circumstance), I would feel that the mechanics are forcing me to play my character falsely, which I think is a result that a good social system should never output. I suppose you could just invoke Red Rule for this stuff - "I feel this is violating my conception of my character" probably reasonably qualifies as discomfort for these purposes - but...I dunno, I feel like this is much more...banal than a Red Rule invocation, if that makes sense? Like, Red Rule feels to me like an Emergency Abort Button, while this is more about adding an extra layer of common sense against the social system outputting incorrect results.

I'll add in some of the language about "unacceptable influence" I initially skipped over back in. This is kind of a tricky area, because the bi-directional nature of social influence (ie, you can persuade players to do stuff they might not have chosen) is very much intentional. My experience with Exalted has been that willpower gives players plenty of chances to no-sell influence you don't like. If nothing else, being able to no-sell three or four influence attempts gives you plenty of time to physically skedaddle.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Update! The document now covers the other "major" Exalt types-- Dragon Blooded, Lunars, Sidereals, and Abyssals. Everything you need to play one, from excellencies to caste abilities, it's all there. Well, except for the charms themselves, but hey, that's not a big problem, right? If you're willing to convert charms yourself using the guidelines in Chapter 11, they're fully playable, though!