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>What is Exalted?
An epic high-flying role-playing game about reborn god-heroes in a world that turned on them.
Start here:http://theonyxpath.com/category/worlds/exalted/
>That sounds cool, how can I get into it?
Read the 3e core book (link below). For mechanics of the old edition, play this tutorial:http://mengtzu.github.io/exalted/sakuya.html
It’ll get you familiar with most of the mechanics.
>Gosh that was fun. How do I find a group?
Roll20 and the Game Finder General here on /tg/. good luck
>Resources for Third Edition
>3E Core and Splats
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/b54o6teut3fx6/Exalted_3e
>Errata for Third Edition
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n3ooTmopm3CBxW5jwPp1761xsaIccea-5X IhVM_PQEc/edit
>Other Ex3 Resources
https://pastebin.com/fG1mLMdu (embed)
>Resources for Older Editions
https://pastebin.com/BXSGuFdQ (embed)
>Current Quixalted Extended QE Version (Fanmade Supplement)
https://files.catbox.moe/rjgmo5.pdf
>Optional Quixalted Exalts
https://www.mediafire.com/file/jg86yrewnhx2ov3/QE_Reject3eExaltHomebre w.pdf/file
>Exalted Demake/Black Vault (Now with updates):
https://pastebin.com/Tt1PjuYt (embed)
https://pastebin.com/qHRW9N51 (embed)
>collection of Exalted Hacks
https://pastebin.com/gtZnycJs (embed)
>stuff that might be interesting
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/the-exalted-thread-with-no-ori ginal-ideas.317216/
Previous thread: >>97373755
>TQs:
How much use does Craft get in your games? What do you use it for most? What homebrew rules do you use for it, if any?
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>>97436305
>How much use does Craft get in your games?
Feels like there's someone mainlining Craft every other game. I personally am playing the only character I have ever seen which has done crafting as a side gig instead of going mainline charge into it (I kind of fell into it sideways since I was mainlining thaumaturgy and sorcery and CNNT is useful for that in Demake).
>What do you use it for most?
I personally have only played the one crafter and it's this one right now, where half of what I make is alchemical products and 90% of the rest is mundane crafting stuff like clothes and containers for my alchemy from shitty components since I'm playing a dead broke desert barbarian.
As a Storyteller most of my players have used it to make artifacts and nothing but artifacts. To be more specific what they make is usually weapons, tools for crafting better, manses, and automatons, in that order.
>What homebrew rules do you use for it, if any?
I am playing Demake's rules right now, which means splendors in a sorcerous working lite sort of system. I have run base 3e Craft, sanctaphrax's craft rewrite, Essence's ventures, and 2e's base Craft. Base 3e is pretty bad, sanctaphrax's is the one we kept coming back to for 3e, ventures worked okay but the difficulty is definitely not equivalent to the reward, and base 2e craft made a lot of sense and was actually dang good. Base 2e and sanctaphrax's rewrite share a bit of an issue where using in-character time (days, weeks, months, years, etc) be ruinous when games go fast, and the rewrite on session-based time can be so fast it gets ridiculous.
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>>97436513
In terms of what I've seen, it's Mara, Erembour, Ligier, and Sondok. Personally, I think the number one is Ligier for sure.
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>>97438688
Only in 3e and Essence. In 3e, artifact weapons only provide the +1 dice bonus from exceptional equipment to feats of strength such as destroying things, regardless of whether they're artifact whips or goremauls. In Essence there is no bonus.
In 2e the rules for translating damage to feats of destruction are in the corebook on page 153, and in 1e the rules for it are on page 239 of the corebook.
Presumably the newdevs just forgot to add in the rules for some reason. Most likely because real damage got shifted into being initiative-based.
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I just simulated a 1 on 1 between a solar exalted (9 CC dice, heavy melee weapon, 5 motes, 10 health levels, defense 5, hardness 3, soak 3, CC excellence and star cleaving crater) and a blood ape (9 CC dice, unarmed, 7 motes, 10 health levels, defense 5, hardness 4, soak 6, murderous blow and Divine Excellence: combat.) in Exalted Essence. The Solar got his shit kicked in 6 rounds, and he wasn't able to damage a single hl. Is this normal?
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>>97438861
Kinda. It's mostly the Soak. Soak is a stupidly effective stat when it works, and in a 1v1 it's hard to counter, but the Solar's answer should have been to build up 10 Power then Reveal Weakness (maybe even do it twice, I'm unsure which way works out better) and dump the rest of his Power ASAP. If you just had them slam into each other then it's never going to be a contest, the Blood Ape will take no damage and the Solar will die crying.
Also, Star-Cleaving Crater is pretty much always bad, in that it's never a good move to use it, unless you also have Heaven Thunder Hammer or some other forced movement option that doesn't ruin your action economy.
That said yes the blood ape probably does win against the Essence 1 Solar even with good play unless they're properly optimized in some way. It's hard to call that a bad thing, though, blood apes are supposed to be pretty strong. Two blood apes would lose to two Solars, or even two Dragonblood, if they have good team play though. They don't have the right options available to work together well.
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>>97438861
Let me count this out properly with average rolls, actually. I'm curious whether one or two Reveals is the best play and I suspect it's two. I'm also unsure if the Solar can outpace the damage well enough. I'm going to assume the weapon is two-handed because almost all the heavy melee weapons are, and because it means we can't cheat out accuracy dice by swapping to the fist on withering attacks. Let's also assume build power isn't a thing, even though it really is a thing and would matter here - we don't know the Solars best BP stats, so the ape won't use it either. I don't know where the wound penalties are, so I'm not doing that either.
Actions, S is Solar and A is Ape:
t1 S: withering for 9 base +5 Excellency +2 Stunt vs Defense 5 = 8 vs 5 = 4 Power.
t1 A: withering for 9 base +4 Excellency +2 Stunt +2sux Accuracy vs Defense 5 = 9 vs 5 = 5 Power
t2 S: withering again, same stats = +4 = 8 Power
t2 A: decisive for 9 base +4 Excellency +2 Stunt +2sux Accuracy vs Defense 5 = 9 vs 5 = 4. Damage pool is 4 threshold + 5 Power + 2 autosux from murderous blow = 6, -3 Soak = 3 damage inflicted
t3 S: testing the line where he goes early; Reveal Weakness (-3 Power) for 9 base +5 Excellency +2 Stunt vs Defense 5 = 8 vs 5 = blood ape -3 soak for 3 rounds.
t3 A: withering again, same stats = 5 Power
t4 S: decisive for 9 base +5 Excellency +2 Stunt vs Defense 5 = 8 vs 5 = 3. Damage pool is 3 threshold + 5 Power +3sux from weapon damage = 7, -3 Soak = 4 damage inflicted
t4 A: decisive again, same stats = 3 damage
t5 S: withering for 4 Power
t5 A: withering for 5 Power
t6: S decisive since reveal weakness runs out this turn, no time to charge; 3 threshold +4 Power +3 sux from weapon damage = 6, -3 Soak = 3 damage inflicted
t6 A: decisive for 3 damage
t7: S charges Power, A withers
t8: S charges Power, A decisive to kill Solar
Fight would go either way based on RNG. The ape benefits a lot here because his average withering is in a sweet spot to turn on murderous blow.
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>>97439110
Your Solar, frankly, didn't have much if any combat capability. He has an Excellency and that's it. He was also stupid as all hell. Essence cares about tactics, it's not like 2e where you just grind on each other or 3e where you just wither and hope someone comes out on top. You actually have multiple actions you can take and attacking is not the most valid by default. See >>97439114.
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>>97439114
Running through the other lines: Two reveal weaknesses means the Solar attacks on turn 6 and does 5 damage before dying, while waiting for Reveal Weakness on turn three does eight damage overall, but the second hit goes through one turn later.
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>>97439114
Optimizing this fully isn't realistic because it relies on using average rolls 100% of the time and having perfect knowledge of the enemy statline. It would involve the solar dropping his weapon and using clashes. In a clash the Solar and blood ape dice pools are the same, so the Solar always wins the clash because of the Solar Advantage that says they win ties. It's a weird line because then the ape's optimal play is to invest minimum 3 Power instead of all 5 so that they can build enough power over time to attack multiple times in a row, while the Solar clashes with the cheapest available gambit (Distract, for 2 Power) so that they can get ahead of that and clash multiple times in a row. Eventually the Solar wins because both of them can only store 10 Power maximum, which is enough for three turns of attacks for the ape while the Solar would still have four Power left over after three turns of clashes. Solar builds back up faster, eventually they get a Reveal Weakness in and clash with decisive damage on the ape's last attack. I think, I THINK, the Solar manages to chip down the ape after something stupid like 30 rounds and taking zero damage. It never happens in a real match though because you'd have variance in your rolls.
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>>97439337
Best way is probably to pick a central MA that fits your character concept and build around it. I going to personally recommend Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Style, a Sidereal martial art whose capstone allows you activate multiple form charm simultaneously, and makes all such MAs share form weapons and armour. It's something powerful to bulid towards.
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>>97439337
>What's the best way to build a Dawn that wants to learn and use as many martial art styles as possible? Which styles have good synergies with each other?
If 'best' is optimising purely for number of martial arts styles, then you need to start with 2e and go for Swallowing the Lotus Root. That lets you take terrestrial martial arts for half price, letting you pick them up super fast. The average TMA is 8 charms at 4xp each and you get about 5xp per session.
But that's actually only about on pace with taking martial arts in Essence, which are usually only four charms long and the official messaging is that you should receive a Minor Milestone (the only way to get MA for everyone not a Sidereal) every two sessions.
And then... well, there's the black arts of 3e. Black art #1 is to go into persona charms under socialize, which let you take ~5 bonus personas each of which has access to ~75% of your experience total for ~300% extra value. Unfortunately, martial arts in 3e cost a hell of a lot more than they can in 2e/Essence, but you have so much xp this way that it doesn't matter. Black art #2 is having a friend / Ally with Flowing Mind Prana juicing you up with as much experience as they can get. This is the blackest art and can theoretically take your xp levels over 9000% normal, so use with care - your training times may actually be the biggest issue, here.
>which styles have good synergies with each other
White Veil Style has synergies with anything which has Touch effects, which I always find fun. White Veil + Citrine Poxes is something I've always wanted to have come online but never got the chance for. Meanwhile, Emerald Gyre in 3e has a charm which echoes an attack... on every target it hit. This has ridiculous synergy with AoEs, because every target hit in the AoE will shoot out their own AoE that obliterates them and everyone around them. I like combo'ing it with Single Point or Righteous Devil.
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>>97439402
just get a tutor lmao
how hard can it be
i hear they have training camps for illuminated ones like you
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>>97439509
If fighting skill didn't matter we'd still have the Primordials around. Or if not them then the Solars would still be in charge. And if we didn't have social skills the Exalted would've never had the Creation-Ruling Mandate there would be no surrender oaths and Malfeas, there'd just be dead Primordials.
If we didn't have sorcery, No Key have been around to stop the Balorian Crusade early.
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I've been thinking of a way to have both reincarnation and incarnation of Celestial Exaltation be true
You use a metaphor like a Celestial Exaltation being like a gem, with each new Chosen being a facet cut in that gem. That "facet" would be them even after they die, retaining personality, memories and skills, when not being accessed they sleep for lack of a better term, an eternal continuation of them. Lytek's job goes from cleaning out memories to suppressing these facets, so that the new Celestial Chosen isn't overwhelmed by their past lives. Because the Exaltation becomes part of you, and you become part of the Exaltation, you are both a reincarnation and incarnation.
For gameplay I would say that it's a way to justify learning things like martial arts without having an appropriate teacher. (SMA would probably be excluded from being taught this way, at least to Solars.) You could have storylines where past lives don't want to accept their death, and you have to find ways to suppress their influence, or in exchange for learning things like from a Mentor you perform last wishes for them.
It probably needs some more polish to the idea, but I think it has legs.
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>>97436305
>How much use does Craft get in your games?
I'm a Twilight, so a lot
>What do you use it for most?
Whatever I want. Weapons, manses, armour, 3x battleships, an biotech replacement body for herself, a Titan. All fun things to make and use against my foes. In the background she also makes things like her clothes, most of her food, etc... she's a perfectionist that distrusts staff in a corrupt country.
>What homebrew rules do you use for it, if any?
Sandact's homebrew rules. I would never dare touch RAW craft rules again after using them once.
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>>97436670
>Cue this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlE83G8ODWw
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>>97440076
>>97440258
Given how desperately Lytek is to hold onto power, he doesn't feel the type to diminish himself by making an Exigent
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>>97438931
>First circle demon is equal to an essence 1 Solar.
What the fuck is wrong with this setting. At least you don't actually start at essence 1 but my god, Yozi just have solar level spawn. That's hilarious. You can't pile them up either because turning them into a battle group just makes them weaker.
god solars are such pussies, even first circle demons can fight them. lamo.
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>>97441166
It's just funny to me that people in this thread vary so much on this. On one side you have people who think even third circle demons shouldn't be able to challenge solars at character gen - then you have people who say that starting solars would get solo'd by Blood Apes both in lore and mechanics. There are millions of blood apes, mind you.
I don't think I've ever seen that in any other setting before. Maybe Mage from World of Darkness. It's a tad fascinating. Although, my reading comprehension is poor and I didn't realize he was talking about essence specifically instead of just exalted as a whole.
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>>97441177
>>97441166
Maybe it has to do with how inconsistent things are, like how mortals could stomp character creation solars by just ganging up on them in 2e.
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>>97441177
3e wanted to make both true at the same time, with the introduction of the supernal mechanic.
>I don't think I've ever seen that in any other setting before
It is because Exalted aped too many contradictory fantasy works, by doing so we end up with a schizophrenic setting.
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>>97441201
>Maybe it has to do with how inconsistent things are
Yes, even the post exaltation bit is contradictory, it is both "you blaze with divine sun mighty, and can kill any mortal with ease" and "you glow a bit, and is slightly better than before".
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>>97441201
I've seen this both ways though. No amount of mortals would matter because they become battlegroups. I've also seen people say that each mortal gets there own action so all it takes is like 20 people to kill a ton of things you wouldn't expect them to based on how the game is advertised.
I'm not even trying to be mean here it's actually really interesting. You get this in Mage with how people run that game, where some tables have mages being able to do anything while others are super -super- strict on certain things. I am honestly struggling to think of any other comparisons for how the fandom views power levels. Not an anime, not another game, not even something from a fantasy verse.
Maybe the people who take JJK shit posting really seriously and think that Gojo is a fraud. I don't know. I'm grasping here.
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>>97439754
>I think this is a pretty good idea. In play, I think this should be around 3-4 personalities influencing the PC. They'd probably the ones with the either the greatest feats or last holders.
It would definitely be an optional thing to have a PC learn from and be influenced them beyond the occasional flashback to the past that Exalts normally get
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>>97441399
Mage? Ascension or Awakening?
Ascension rules are too esoteric, to the point no two tables play the same game.
Awakening 2e was designed so you have to keep a close eye, so your players don't disintegrate all opposition by abusing creative use of the first dot of a given arcana.
>the game is advertised.
Like many other WW games, exalted as sold, and exalted as intended, are two completely different games.
>Gojo fraud.
He is one of those "too strong to exist" characters, similar to Mahoraga, he deflects the allegations.
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>>97441630
They all lose to the anti-spirals anyways. Definitely Goku. Gojo might be able to beat Kid Goku but I'm still banking on Kid Goku. He can blow up mountains and cities, Gojo can only blow up a few blocks.
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>>97441240
>Yes, even the post exaltation bit is contradictory, it is both "you blaze with divine sun mighty, and can kill any mortal with ease" and "you glow a bit, and is slightly better than before".
That's just an in universe explanation for minmax or shit builds.
>>97441737
>But talking about exalted, what is your favorite encounter with a Raksa?
I honestly haven't seen anyone use the fuckers in any meaningful way.
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>>97441078
>At least you don't actually start at essence 1
You do in Essence. Also, I wouldn't think it crazy to think that a literally just-this-moment Exalted Solar with an Excellency, an Ox Body, and who doesn't even have 5/5 combat stats would go down to a blood ape. It's even more so in Essence since Solars don't get more dice from excellencies, only cheaper ones. This entire fight >>97439114 involves the Solar spending zero motes total and the blood ape spending and recovering recovering one mote per round for net 0 movement on mote pools.
>>97441737
>power levels.
>I am not autistic enough for this.
I will say that it's nice that for once the power level discussion is entirely within one edition of Exalted, and entirely within the context of it's mechanics, rather than trying to mishmash fanon lore, canon lore, fanon mechanics and canon mechanics from multiple editions together.
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>>97442704
I'm not in favor of maximum Solarwank, but I definitely think a Solar should be able to defeat a blood ape without optimized stats and with fairly minimal combat investment. Maybe not without any difficulty and maybe not multiple blood apes, but defeating a single fairly low-kevel demonic footsoldier shouldn't, in my opinion, be a hugely difficult feat requiring a dedicated Exalted combatant to reliably pull off.
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>>97443057
>I'm not in favor of maximum Solarwank, but I definitely think a Solar should be able to defeat a blood ape without optimized stats and with fairly minimal combat investment
And they can? You say 'A Solar' as if all Solars are the same. A Solar this fresh and badly built would die to a blood ape even in 2e.
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>>97443101
>An unoptimized solar can't even beat an optimized mortal.
>an unoptimized solar circle sorcerer can't even stop an optimized mortal from stealing his girl
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>>97443101
Dex 3, Melee 3 and an Excellency is already enough to put your maximum dicepool above an optimized Dex 5, Melee 5 + Specialty mortal. Obviously you'll run out of motes eventually, but even that obviously unoptimized level of combat ability is enough to give a Solar a good chance of defeating a mortal swordmaster.
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>>97443141
In every edition other than 3e a mortal would be able to optimize much further than raw stats. I don't know why you'd give the Solar their Excellency and assume the mortal got nothing, especially when literally nobody has been talking about 3e. The discussion was very explicitly about Exalted Essence, with a small diversion to 2e in the context of 'not even in 2e would this work'.
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>>97443072
A blood ape even in 2E is kind of scary
They have Excellencies on their 9 Acc Claw attacks, and Principle of Motion with 5 extra actions on top of that
A mortal grandmaster will die to that easy one-on-one, if they don't get to go first and get lucky
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>>97441737
>what is your favorite encounter with a Raksa?
Ever since I found out 3e has a spell to bind them, I'm working on a character with a battalion of them manning a sky ship like its Pirates of the Caribbean on crack
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>>97443177
>What kind of optimization beyond stats are you thinking about for the mortal, anon?
Well, in 1e/2e they'd be enlightened and a heroic character with access to a bunch of stuff from thaumaturgy to martial arts to merits and more. In Essence it kind of depends on what you mean, because antagonists don't have dicecaps and mortal PCs run on effectively the same rules as Exalted, mote pools and charms and everything.
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>>97443345
The average Solar does have meaningful combat skills, don't be obtuse anon. They're not combat optimizers but it's the Age of Sorrows and life is cheap. Almost everybody's got some experience with someone beating someone up and taking their lunch money and it's a very clear necessity that you need some fighting skill to not have that happen to you all the time. All Solars are also aware that they're being hunted and that most everybody who knows what they are will try to sabotage or kill them. Enough direct combat skill to beat off mortals is probably something 90% of Solars have, with 90% of the rest having some kind of alternative plan like sorcery or stealthing away.
The other hand is that being good at combat, like actually meaningfully contesting combat optimizers good, is something probably something only ~10% of Solars are doing. Solars who wants to get strong for reasons like, they need strength to do something, or they want to get strong enough that nobody will be able to stop them doing whatever they want, those aren't going to be optimizing for combat, they're aiming at higher Essence or better social status. The only real combat wombats are the ones who're in it for the love of the game.
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>>97443389
What might thise statistics be based on?
>>97443401
Sure. There is no reason to assume that all Abilities are equally commonly trained, however, or that ratings in Abilities are on are normally distributed. Combat Abilities are pretty important for survival and consequently presumably more common than, say Bureaucracy or Sail. Looking at canon character writeups also points to most Exalts being unoptimized but still having meaningful combat capabiliities.
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>>97443389
The average Solar has some skill in every Ability. You might mean median.
>>97443401
Solars learn more than one skill? Obviously?
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>>97443916
The first two obviously aren't abilities.
>>97443762
I tried to work it out, but Endurance/Integrity and Brawl/War/MA still only makes 27 total, and Essence has 14 abilities but about half of them are new so that doesn't work either.
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>>97443345
I find this incredibly stupid it by itself.
Even if you were an exalt that came from a background of no combat skills, you're going to realize very quickly as a Solar/Lunar that powerful people want your head so learning some self defense so you're not impaled by a few mortal guards and a blood ape is critical. You don't need to go full army slayer, but some basic essentials are required.
If you're a Dragonblooded or Sidereal then you get the full battery of training.
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Imagine being the Unconquered Sun, you're fighting a war against your Primordial enslavers, and one of your primary weapons, the Solar Exalted, emerges with a talent for bookkeeping, riding horses and writing poems, but no combat potential.
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>>97444762
Technically, it is far less since nights have dodge and Zeniths have resistance.
But yes, Solars were poorly designed in an attempt of aping D&D classes.
>>97444906
Unfortunately, not every caste could have been a twilight, but Eclipses are really useful for logistics.
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>>97444976
This is just an issue of classless design I feel. DnD and other systems have hand holding methods to ensure a character doesn't fall behind in combat. In Exalted, WoD, hell even M&M there's none of this hand holding so it's completely possible.
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>>97445011
I'm not really sure if we're even being fair here. Exalted combat is based on charm combos and charms. You don't ask "can a solar roll to kill" you ask "Can the solar use X charms or charm to kill when he rolls." As far as I can tell this is true for all editions.
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>>97445011
WoD gave each clan a physical/combat-survival discipline, accidentally making some clans too good combatants.
The problem is that 1e thought it was a good idea to give Dawns/Fighters a monopoly over aggression abilities.
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>>97445052
It's not even about magical abilities though. I mean just base math. DnD has BAB which a character gets, and most classes since 4e have some scaling method to fire out basic attacks with reliable accuracy.
Exalted doesn't have this. If you don't invest in a combat ability, you will be shit at it, full stop. "Invest" in this case being just getting dots in the actual ability.
>>97445055
The dawn's being solo combatants is an issue yes. It's why I'm thankful 3e allowed "here's 8, pick 5"
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>>97445072
I dunno, there always seems to be something people should be able to do in combat. I also can't think of an edition where getting 5 in at least one stat that you can "hit" people with is really hard.
This isn't DnD where a fighter attacks four times. This is DnD where everyone is a level 15 wizard who can attack four times. Also, some exalted charms are flat out insane.
It's just very interesting that people can go "Blood apes can kill a starting solar" to "A starting solar should be able to handle a blood ape, tough fight" to "A blood ape would get destroyed by a competent starting solar". This is for all editions desu.
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>>97445122
The only purpose an exalt with Dex 3, Str 3, and 0 investment in any of the Dawn abilities has in combat in Ex3 is to serve as an initiative pinata for the enemies.
Now in ExEss you do have other things to do, even if you can't beat a blood ape in combat.
I'm puzzled to why you find this interesting. If you make a shitty character they get their skull caved in as other anons pointed out.
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>>97445072
>The dawn's being solo combatants is an issue yes
It is less combatants, and more "monopoly over offense".
Nights are also combatants, being the thief/rogue analog.
1e!Twilight too, despite being the casters.
Zeniths are the clerics, but they forgot to give them miracle workings.
Eclipse is the caste that they didn't know what to do with.
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I need help!. I'm looking for a document that had a long picture with art of various demons and their accompanying stats, the stylings I remember imply 1e or 2e. In particular I remember there was a picture of a Luminita (deer made of thread) and a demon whose head was like a ball with some eyes embedded into it with legs. I think the document I'm talking about was a compilation from 4plebs or something that also had other antagonist stats, including statblock and picture of the Deer with a human face.
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>>97443177
not him but even without enlightened essence, you can pump an heroic mortal quite a lot. (at least in 2nd ed)
alchemical potion like wind fire, warding talisman, perfect+enchanted weapons and armor. honestly, the motes of mortal are $$$$.
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>No, even normal humans are a huge possible threat to Solars.
Still amazed at how much different people fluctuate on how powerful people are in this setting.
>>97445140
I mean, the idea that there are solars with three in all combat stats without a single charm to help them in any combat situation is one of the things that people don't consider. It's the same with people not thinking they'll get out action econ'd by 50 mortals. I've seen it argued here that it would be fifty individual actions or just a really easy fight because it's only one battle group of mortals.
Plenty of examples of this and how people run tables for this game vastly differently using the same exact ruleset.
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The Blood Ape in 3E might be scarier than 2E
>Principle of Motion lets them just flurry any two actions, grapple-savaging with a boosted double9's/8's
Huh, I never noticed before, but gods lost Principle of Motion, but demons kept it?
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>>97445780
The whole system is built on multiple nameless combatants being formed into battle groups, if you run demons as individuals instead then of course they win through action economy, because the system isn't built on that.
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>>97444906
Conky wasn't an idiot and knew that against sapient concepts that were Primordials you'll need more than just brawl.
Exsmple that ITIRC: SHLIHN was taken out of first decade of war after she has recoved a wtitten message from an Eclipse that put her in a state of complete inaction.
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>>97445818
I'm not sharing any opinions here man I'm just saying how I've seen tables played. All this stuff varies a bit depending on editions anyways.
This also doesn't take into account all the social charms and soceries you can use but some tables here flat out ban those. The amount of crying here over social charms for example is incredible and people write straight paragraphs about how it shouldn't be considered for stuff. For -all- editions.
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>>97445780
>It's the same with people not thinking they'll get out action econ'd by 50 mortals.
If you're trying to run it realistically, then 50 mortals couldn't all hit you in a sibgle combat round, even if they crowd around only so many could actually take a swing at you at a time
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>>97446470
Assuming these are not newly conscripted, but fairly standard soldiers, and not elites, and our Solar also has a bow, then units tend to break when they take about 10% losses, so our Solar with a bow just has to kill 5 of them to break them. Which I feel is easily doable for a young Solar.
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>>97447020
>"Oh wise and powerful Fydian, he of unsurpassed dexterity and peerless intelligence, forger of artifacts endowed with puissance and mystery, please gift upon to me armor to guard my frail body."
>"I suppose I can, my foolish Adamant Will. But before that, praise me more."
>"Give me the damned armor, Fydian."
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>>97447148
What was deleted?
>>97447161
You need to be subtle, like a romantasy/romance cover.
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I like the cover art for Games of Divinity
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>>97447557
Which is good, I like cheesecake. Like >>97447567 says, 3E has less horny art, which I dislike.
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A problem I see with Sorcery is that, it really tries to sell itself as "overwriting reality through will" thing and it actually sounds cool, but on paper it looks really lacking. (Applying to how it is treated in corebooks, especially Exalted Essence)
In the position of a player that purchases Sorcerous Initiation, he picks his shaping ritual, and now he has to pick a sorcery spell. There's 5 options. Oneiromancy, sterilizing food while mildly damaging undead, turning your arm into a wood claw, using a tree as a security camera or acquiring heavy bones that makes you take less damage at combat. He can look forward to purchasing similarly odd and very unrelated AND situational spells for the first circle of universal sorcery, and the next circles will give him even less options.
That is also another issue. For example, the Essence description for Unbreakable Bones of Stone says that you sing the song of earth off-key, so spirits react to it and correct it, causing the effect "Hey, I wonder what would happen if my exalt sang the song of [another element]. What if I learned the song of each color and made it so I can paint compositions the size of a mountain in the side of one? What If I make my army's march be part of the song of the metaphysical concept of rage and righteousness and use it to empower them?"
In that regard, I think this is a big void in the system.
Anybody has ever had similar experiences or thoughts?
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>>97447592
Some are ai, others are to disguise the contents, and others are just Fabio's legacy.
Sometimes you get stuff like Icebreakers that cause controversies because of how deceptive the cover is.
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>>97447557
Yes, it is a legacy from WoD.
>>97447680
It is surprising how the modern female romance can uneven even /d/.
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>>97447699
Well, I meant that RAW, there are not a lot of options, and the design philosophy for them makes each spell very different from each other, and often with uses that might not come in play. I know a competent ST will create situations where the players' unique skills can shine, but as it is, the system feels pretty bare bones.
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>>97447629
>There's 5 options. Oneiromancy, sterilizing food while mildly damaging undead, turning your arm into a wood claw, using a tree as a security camera or acquiring heavy bones that makes you take less damage at combat
Um, anon, you skipped the other five (more counting modes) spells that aren't sorcery-only, but which are available to sorcerers.
>"Hey, I wonder what would happen if my exalt sang the song of [another element]. What if I learned the song of each color and made it so I can paint compositions the size of a mountain in the side of one? What If I make my army's march be part of the song of the metaphysical concept of rage and righteousness and use it to empower them?"
The sorcerous working system exists to allow exactly this kind of freeform thinking. It's not as easy as just changing one part of a spell but it does follow that formula if you want it to.
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>>97448125
>the other five (more counting modes) spells
*7
A first circle sorcerer using only the Essence corebook has twelve spells to choose from, which is the same number that is in the 3e corebook. Pillars of Creation has another five.
There just isn't enough space to give sorcerers a sufficient variety of spells without a dedicated book for it, which is why in 1e/2e they did have dedicated books for it, and it's a big part of why sorcery's pretty bad in 3e. Essence is a lot better than 3e both in that it actually has decent roles in combat (3e's sorcery has a strong focus on combat effects despite being awful at it because of how you need to charge up for every spell, while Essence lets you start the scene with you Will charged up) and a better prioritization towards utility effects.
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>>97448258
Forgot pic >>97448428. You mentioned a deer with a human face, which is this from Compass Malfeas.
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New Celestial Exalted (Essence 1)
1-2 dice of combat investment, ie none, blood ape eats their ass for breakfast
3-4 dice of combat investment, Dex 2 + Abi 1-2, blood ape probably still wins
5-6 dice of combat investment, Dex 2-3 + Abi 2-3 + Spec, much better odds of winning fight with judicious Excellency use
7-8 dice of combat investment, Dex 3-4 + Abi 3-4 + Spec, can win pretty handily unless they job hard
9-11 dice of combat investment, Dex 4-5 + Abi 4-5 + Spec, no problem beating blood ape
This is all considering not using Willpower/stunts/environment/non- weapon equipment which would probably make it easier
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>>97448786
When you do stuff like this, maybe consider specifying your edition. I'm guessing this is 3e, in which case it's a fucking awful breakdown - if you think four dice plus specialty plus nothing is beating a blood ape I've got a bridge to sell you.
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>>97448908
None of it matters if you're not taking into account the charms they're using. Exalted is charm based combat after all.
Apparently, from what I remember at least, some people here think that any build can one shot basically anything so long as they use an ambush attack. I don't know where these crazy people come from, it's just what they say.
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>>97448916
>Apparently, from what I remember at least, some people here think that any build can one shot basically anything so long as they use an ambush attack. I don't know where these crazy people come from, it's just what they say.
This part isn't crazy, but it's only relevant in combat optimization, and it assumes you get the jump on the enemy, and that you beat their join battle (which is something every combat optimizer pumps the shit out of), and that you beat their awareness vs your stealth (when awareness is something every combat optimizer pumps). They tend to just abridge over all of that under the assumption that someone doing stealth will always win, and in that context yes the benefits of ambush are pretty significant - the enemy can't defend themselves against the first round of attacks, after all.
However, you could just as easily assume that all of your spells are up and you're going into combat with Death Ray charged while fighting under Rain of Doom and conclude that sorcery is the best, so I don't really take them too seriously.
>>97448922
He mentioned Willpower and specialties so I assume not. You start at E1 in 3e too.
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>>97448449
I'm uncomfortable with how this image makes me feel
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>>97449235
In fairness, if the Eclipse did actually show up under a flag of truce you could easily count that as a non-verbal socialize or performance based persuade/inspire that calls for peace and/or for calm minds to prevail. That's already a thousand times better than most Eclipses who tend to show up in emotionally charged scenes already expecting everybody to be civil and for them not to be stabbed regardless of what they say or how they say it.
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>>97449380
That's too low key for an Artifact. I doubt armor like that is technologically beyond the Realm's mundane metallurgy, but it doesn't really look like an infantryman's armor, nor like other depictions of legionaries I've seen.
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>>97449515
>That's too low key for an Artifact
That's a bad way to judge whether something is an artifact or not - Restless Wind, Arada's daiklave in the same picture, is an artifact despite being almost completely unadorned. The knight-looking fellow has a big flouncey plume on his head and his armor's engraved, that's more than enough. The color's not off if it's white jadesteel, and the parts we can see of it (chest+shoulders+head) isn't any less fancy than the exact same area we're given as an example of reinforced breastplates in 3e core. The other reason judging instantly based on vibes about appearahce is that for all we know the guy's rocking a twelve inch codpiece wrought in the shape of a dragon with a red jade tip that lets him cum fire.
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>>97448471
https://youtu.be/3jOcyUs-zko?si=TaFpGORwfidqsgCW
https://youtu.be/Mx7l_vhQUjM?si=B3dPrlWKS3upzNqs
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>>97448931
Yeah I was going mostly based on offensive ability, and assuming 2E/3E dice, though I guess you could get up to 13 base dice for 2E if you dumped all your specialties into one thing.
Plus like you mentioned, combat isn't a white room in-game and terrain/ambush/etc matters, and offensive dice isn't everything when you need good Join Battle too. Stunts can make a major difference, a 1-3 dice bonus, for 2E channeling your Virtues can give you a big bonus. Why didn't they let you channel your Ties/Principles in 3E that would have been neat.
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>>97447567
>2e had a woman how gave heart print cotton panties and nipple piercings to everying she drew for Exalted, despite being told not to.
Weird considering what they published about the first Dragon-Blooded.
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>>97448159
>Starting Options
My bad, I forgot about universal spells and PoC. I reflected a little, and I don't think starting spells are all that limiting; they're practical, and they give players starting points for their own workings, and custom spells.
>Sorcerous Workings
I really enjoy this part of 3E and Essence. But I've overlooked its potential.
>On "lack" of content
Yeah, I see it. Essence Players' Guide is still coming out next year, so maybe I shouldn't have been too judgmental, and next time more thorough. Thanks Anon!
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>>97449389
Or if you are not too confident on that, purchasing Ox-Body Technique. You know,
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>>97453794
1e Manacle and Coin
>beasts of resplendent liquids: Strange immortal animals created by the Exalted in the First Age to serve as living drug factories. Once, there were hundreds of these great lizards, each ingesting raw materials and pissing out concentrated drugs mixed with their urine. Today, the only beasts known to remain are two anagathic producers controlled by the Realm and seven the Guild controls that eat opium and process it into heroin.
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>>97454011
I hate this because I know they made it piss because literally no one would care if it was milk. Also, practically speaking, you'd just keep diapers on them and then get it from that. Zero chance they'd use a bucket.
Great art tho.
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>>97454080
I am pretty sure it is a reference to Kopi luwak, and how ancient cultures used animal waste.there's also the small possibility of it being from another fantasy work, but it is small
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>>97454124
Night soil and people collecting animal urine/human urine goes way way way back. Every culture or whatever had people who did that. I'm being dumb because I have no idea how you'd collect animal piss back in the old times.
It just more comes across to me as "How do we make this drug thing more edgy? I know, PISSSSS." I mean, milk is right there. But knowing Exalted if anything had drug like milk it'd be human shaped demons or something else weird.
I could 100% see demon fembois with drugged breast milk and I don't know I feel about that. eh....
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>>97454218
>I could 100% see demon fembois with drugged breast milk and I don't know I feel about that. eh....
Not really, despite the edginess inherent to white wolf, they go in shock mode if a fan suggested it again.
Like when somebody pointed out the "demon abortion farm".
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>>97454301
It'd be an Exxxalted community thing, not a main community thing. But yeah, they don't do fetish stuff as blatantly anymore.
I am 100% sure someone on the team involved with Sol has a huge daddy fetish, so that's something at least.
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Possible boat powers:
Go fast.
Go underwater.
Go air.
When battle flag showing, bright light blinds enemy.
When battle flag showing, enemies surrender and give over loot more readily.
When battle flag showing, enemies get cancer.
When sailing boat can make automatic feats of strength checks to plow through soil and solids until it gets to water again.
When sailing boat can teleport to water sources.
When sailing the boat automagically makes rivers wherever it goes.
Boat is waifu.
Boat is farm.
Boat lets you sail over horizon into hell or yu-shan.
Tons of others I bet.
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>>97455164
Transform into a giant warrior with its sail as a cape
Split into two smaller ships
If you feed it sacrifices it goes faster
It has a dragon-head prow that spits fire and can rotate
Can row itself for a short amount of time, longer if it gets a hearthstone
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>>97455220
If we want to be a bit weirder then say...
The people on the ship can't die even if they take fatal damage. This does nothing to actually heal the sailors.
When the banners are up and an exalted channels motes to it it summons an fleet of ships from thin air/its mirrored hull to follow it.
It has a dragon head and it literally a dragon, capable of growing vast wooden wings and taking to the sky if properly fed.
All sea life in the area obeys the captain of the ship when you're on it and you get a bonus to all sea based life.
No water based ship may sail in the same direction as you - those who attempt it are sucked underwater and crushed.
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>>97455164
>>97455220
>>97455220
Ship's sails don't just make use of wind, they control wind. Useful for sailing, but also for messing with your enemies in combat.
Ship's a moving shadowland that traverses Creation and Underworld alike and raises people slain on it as undead sailors.
Ship just big, unfeasibly so.
Ship summons and is moved by an echo of Adorjan's power rather than any wind of Creation, is itself protected from the Silent Wind, and can deploy it as a weapon and/or hazard against others.
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>>97455271
I had 'sail to any port in five days' on a sailing ship, which let it get to other worlds, skyports (even collapsed ones), from the Inland Sea to the Dreaming Sea, and to Sunken Luthe. I just really wanted people to be able to roam around a lot without killing the campaign's pacing.
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By closing all windows and going below deck and traversing only by map the ship is able to be in multiple places at once. They still travel, half ephemeral yet visible as they sail. If they're acted upon or act upon something, or if they go above deck, they can instead choose to materialize at any of its possible locations. It can sail to captains essence x 3 places at the same time.
The ship is built by sidereals and can sail the winds of fate. It can appear wherever there is at least a puddle of water, it showing up being quite explosive for everything around it when it does so - like an impacting comet. It's almost indestructible but it sails on fate, meaning only the most skilled sidereals are capable of making it move - and only to places where fate is strongest or where something dangerous to fate will appear. There is only one.
Ship become smoll.
Canon shoot eggs that are actually demons termites.
The ship... is made of fire?! fuck i don't know...
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>>97455520
>By closing all windows and going below deck and traversing only by map the ship is able to be in multiple places at once. They still travel, half ephemeral yet visible as they sail. If they're acted upon or act upon something, or if they go above deck, they can instead choose to materialize at any of its possible locations. It can sail to captains essence x 3 places at the same time.
Hey, I remember that manse power. Always did wonder why manse-ships sailing around isn't a thing, it'd make seafaring chronicles much cooler if that was the default expectation instead of artifact ships (which would make more sense for surfboards, windboards, or jetskis, or suchlike). I know that the esoteric metaphysical answer is that geomantic flows don't move around but I mean really you already have travelling demesnes and mobile manses and capping a demesne is supposed to stabilize it even if people mess around with the site so what gives?
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>>97455742
>travelling demesnes and mobile manses
There really shouldn't exist
At least traveling demenses shouldn't, a mobile manse that "fuels up" at open demenses might work from a lore standpoint, but it could also just be an artifact flying building that serves the same purpose and powers
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>>97457637
The line between building and vehicles, can be very blurry at times
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>>97457661
I think buses are edge case mostly because there's a fairly wide range in what would be considered a bus. London's double deckers like picrel I'd lean more towards a manse, and most other kinds of bus with multiple compartments I'd probably think the same. On the other hand, I could see an argument for the Magic School Bus with a pretty straightforward power and idea of what it can do leaning more towards being an artifact.
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>>97457698
I'd definitely not handle a bus of any size, or, say, a train, or a ship, as a Manse. Not necessarily even all magical buildings - if you have, like, a seed of green jade that'll sprout into a comfy hut when planted, with the hut then withering to nothing and leaving behind only that same seed when you tap a specific part of it, well, that sounds like an Artifact to me.
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>>97457733
>I'd definitely not handle a bus of any size, or, say, a train, or a ship, as a Manse
Why? Do you just think all manses should be immobile, or do you disagree with them sharing similar roles or something?
Personally, I would. Anything that looks like it should be able to channel and redefine essence at scale through geomantic principles seems like something that could be handled as a manse, to me.
>Not necessarily even all magical buildings - if you have, like, a seed of green jade that'll sprout into a comfy hut when planted, with the hut then withering to nothing and leaving behind only that same seed when you tap a specific part of it, well, that sounds like an Artifact to me.
And I agree on this, but in the same way that not all magical buildings should be manses, not every magical non-building should be an artifact (or product of sorcery). The idea of manses is something that's more widely applicable, in the same way that artifact rules have been applied much more broadly than personal tools, weapons, and armor.
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>>97458054
>Why? Do you just think all manses should be immobile, or do you disagree with them sharing similar roles or something?
Not him, but manses to me is that they should be almost entirely immobile, and I'm not so hidebound to say there can't be a mobile manse, but a mobile manse-vehicle should have large drawbacks acting as a manse.
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>1E
The owner must be present and consent to another character attuning to their demense. Impossible to forcibly deattune another character while alive, they have to consent to deattune or be killed. (Would a god having to reform in their sanctum count as being killed?)
>2E
The owner must consent to attunement of a demense, but doesn't need to be present to approve of it. You can become the new owner or a co-owner.
>3E
Owner of a demense can allow multiple attunements, can sense new attempted attunements, but can't block them if not physically present, if they succeed they become sub-attunements. The owner can break any attunements to their demense with a Wits+Occult roll, Diff 3. Unlike other demense rules in core editions, attunements to demenses fade, (Essence) weeks after leaving. (Manse attunements fade too, after (Essence) months if you don't carry the hearthstone with you.)
There might be different rules in the expanded books for demenses too
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>>97436305
Weekly Update
>Development
Sidereals Jumpstart
This was actually in development a couple of weeks ago, but it slipped under my radar in the post-holiday catchup. It’s great when the developers are more on top of things than I am!
>Layout
Alchemicals
>Press
Exigents – Printing. Proofing printed cover sample
sparse again this week, but it was the first month of the year. whatever hold up has alchemicals sitting in layout for a couple months better be worth it. though none of the books in the art direction phase are forthcoming either
see you in a few days for the monthly, unless timing provides that it's combined with the weekly
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>>97459374
>>97436305
one other thing i meant to mention
seems today they begin the physical shipping process of exigent in earnest, specifically on confirming all the shipping and order information is correct. if you ordered exigent prints and need to make a correction, they're giving a 48hr notice before the order is locked, so change it if you need to. though it'll still be half a month before the payment is processed
this matters in the greater exalted sphere because the exigent print run is being used as a trial run for their new printing partner, and if it succeeds we'll start seeing the other products like sidereals/abyssals finish their own runs, and other onyx path crowdfunded books besides if that's relevant to you
https://www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/onyxpathpublishing/exigents-out- of-the-ashes-for-exalted-3rd-editio n/updates/69
also i double checked and alchemicals has spent 3 months in layout
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>>97459374
>>97459484
Wait, the Exigents core is only being shipped now?!
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>>97436305
What advice do you have for designing new things your characters can make? What if they're based on items from other settings?
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>>97460630
>Do tell please!
Caladbolg, in Exalted terms it can be used to destroy fortifications and armies, being capable of destroying three hills when swung and it has a sweet rainbow effect when swung.
Dáinsleif, has to kill someone after being drawn but wounds it causes can't be healed. (For Exalted, you would probably need Celestial tier Medicine or somebody who can dispel its curse to heal from it.)
Kusanagi no Tsurugi, can attack a wide area whenever it's swung like that one Melee Charm from 2E
Yata no Kagami, another weeb artifact, a mirror that always shows the truth, magic and mundane disguises dissolve away if they are reflected in it
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Is there a consensus on the best edition to start out? I was checking the essence starter pdf and this looks cool as hell, turnes out someone else from my group tried the game out (no idea what edition it was) and he liked it, so we might end up playing it. I would GM this and I was leaning towards making characters together with the players rather than handing them out a premade sheet, since that could very well be overwhelming when combined with the new system. I would have 3 players if that's relevant.
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>>97462285
dark skinned people stay dark when their dead, they just lose their lively pallor like light skinned people. it's still noticeably dark, just less pronounced
that said abyssals don't all carry their deathly aspects the same way, so being more pale might be the least of their physical changes
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>>97460887
if it's merely a concern about ease of character creation and understanding the rules, essence wins by far. even the relatively simple first edition has the complication of slightly more complex, less cohesive rules and separation of standard and exalted power combat. though essence is approachable it's also much more simple and less robust. you'll have fun playing it but you won't get the joy of breaking the game in half, which i concede doesn't appeal to everyone but contrary to the modern design ethos doesn't appeal to no one either
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>>97460887
Depends on your needs and wants. Generally the answer is Essence, but it does depend a lot on what drew you to the game. If you're here because you got invested in hype forum posts then you should probably start in 2e, if you're here because you heard about the setting (rather than the Exalted specifically) then you should probably start in 1e, if you're here because you downloaded a book and thought it looked cool then start with that one that looked cool.
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Essence has the unfair advantage of all the splats and their various rules being written at the same time by the same people, rather than over the course of a decade. Of course it looks like the best option when its got that level of cohesive writing and sensible cross-splat balance
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>>97461550
Great, kek.
>>97461606
Boy does that sound promising.
>>97462403
Essence is the one I checked first, but the 3rd ed core with its brick constitution does tempt me to dive in. We're not power gamers but do enjoy having choices that matter for our builds, plus I usually am more focused on low power games that flow smoothly, due to lack of time, when I GM, and I want to get out of my comfort zone. We look like we're managing a core of players that can more or less meet weekly and cut the bullshit so I want to try something more crunchy.
>>97462407
>it does depend a lot on what drew you to the game
The higher power level with the fancy names, and the ample choice for character creation, if I had to choose. The setting itself is less important because I usually just replace it or at least put some spin on it anyway.
A thing I should have mentioned is that I prefer to use phisical copies of books while playing rather than digital, and I can find 1st ed and 2nd ed core books for quite cheap, some even localized. So, if they're still usable, I'd probably lean towards those two. If everyone else likes the game I can always get essence or 3rd ed later.
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>>97462497
>The higher power level with the fancy names, and the ample choice for character creation, if I had to choose. The setting itself is less important because I usually just replace it or at least put some spin on it anyway.
>Essence is the one I checked first, but the 3rd ed core with its brick constitution does tempt me to dive in. We're not power gamers but do enjoy having choices that matter for our builds
2e or Essence, then.
Essence is more forgiving and jammed into a smaller space so it's easier to grasp all of your options, but it's progression is very fast so you run out of space to grow more easily. That's only relevant after half a year to a year's worth of weekly play though. Essence is also a game where tactics and teamwork matter a lot more than any other edition - if you don't use all your moves a hard fight can become impossible, like we saw >>97438861. The equivalent of mouse1+Lclick is a playstyle but it's not something every character can do.
2e is the highest power level spread among the largest number of books, with the widest array of options you can get. Characters regularly get ludicrous and it's all based around who has the best potential for bullshit combo magic paradigms. The system does break down in a few ways into a much worse state than Essence if you optimize it all the way down to it's bones, but when everybody's actually playing the game as opposed to gaming the system it runs some pretty incredible games. Every charm and move you make hits hard, and the problems Essence has with progression are nonexistent. The main issue, again, is that as a system it's not robust in the way e.g. Essence is, where you'll be able to handle pretty much any problem you or your players throw into it and (this is the important part) still have a fun game - if you push hard to optimize in 2e, the system breaks into a state that's sluggish and grudging.
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>>97462557
Thank you anon, I will start looking into 2nd ed as well then. I do enjoy having a combat system that isn't just "build autism before the game and then attack+move", and I want to up the encounter game while I GM.
Speaking of which, does the system thrive on high level combat between powerful individuals, or is it mainly about putting the powerful PCs against chaff with some boss in-between?
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>>97462574
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>>97462574
>Speaking of which, does the system thrive on high level combat between powerful individuals, or is it mainly about putting the powerful PCs against chaff with some boss in-between?
I've seen it run both ways, and often it depends on the game, the antagonists, and the player's characters who are at play. Sequential fights are the (in-character canonical) bane of Exalted everywhere, and it's common for games where the Wyld Hunt is a threat to be harried by a bunch of chaff and for the main squad of Immaculate monks to only take to the field when they're pretty sure you're already on your last legs. On the other hand, if you're basically running around and bump into an encounter in one way or another, it can very much be all of your strong guys vs all of their strong guys. The other common sequence is actually that the players will leverage out-of-combat skillsets like stealth or sorcery and skip huge portions of what could otherwise be combat.
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>>97463306
Wyld artifacts, because they get shit on as near-useless just for being Wyldy despite the fact that they're supposed to have exactly the same functionality as any Creation-made artifact at the same dot rating. If they're actually supposed to work like that and be so relatively easy to make (at low dots, at least) then have them be part of the setting rather than something that only ever shows up in raksha chargen.
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Guy who asked about editions here. I asked the group and we're having a one shot with essence to get a general feel for the system and high power play, then we'll most probably settle with 2nd ed for a while. The move to 3rd/essence will be considered if they really get into it.
That said, what are some new GM tips for this? I'm no stranger to playing and GMing other systems, but first time I touch exalted in any way.
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>>97463866
>That said, what are some new GM tips for this? I'm no stranger to playing and GMing other systems, but first time I touch exalted in any way.
Roughly half the number of dice people are throwing is a beatable Difficulty. If they throw 10 dice, Difficulty 5 is ~50-60% and this trend continues down until people are at ~2-4 dice where it's more fractional and upwards indefinitely.
In Essence specifically, Soak is very powerful but has a solid counter available to everyone in the Reveal Weakness gambit, which you might point out to players if they do face difficulties there. Teamwork is another powerful mechanic, but be more careful with it because it's easy to use to brute force past static challenges (i.e. 'the gate is barred! punching through it is difficulty 7, but fortunately my good friend Galahad the Brave can sing me a song to encourage me and now I have twice as many dice') when you might prefer them to be more reasonable. Be aware that team play like this is very strong if antagonists start doing it too and try not to go for the throat with it.
Try to be flexible, have people stunt a lot, don't be afraid to match them with equally flamboyant drama queens, and don't be afraid to abbreviate quickly over stuff that isn't as interesting. Exalted is a game where it's very easy for players to knock over what would normally be very important challenges with shows of force and charisma and it's good to have the world react as if those shows of force are as scary as they are. Mortals fleeing before the monstrous and the divine is always a good vibe. Over-the-top opposition is a-okay, and if someone questions the likelihood you can say 'fate' or 'underlying patterns set in motion by unknown forces' and you'd be right. The other side of that is that if something's clearly beneath the players it's okay to treat it like it is, in fact, beneath them and to just delegate it or brush past it. Try to be cool as you make a cool world for people to be cool in.
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>>97462896
Yes, QE is simpler.
>MTG.
Exalted is a pseudo CCG & RPG hybrid since 2e, at least, they even sell charm cards.
>>97463866
2e can be rocket-tag, beware the paranoia paradigm of perfect spams.
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>>97459484
>>97436305
one last reminder if you had a physical order for exigents to make sure you're order's correct. you have 24hrs to change adresses/names/products ordered/whatever. after this time tomorrow your order is hard locked, though again no payments processed until around valentine's day
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>>97462497
>The higher power level with the fancy names, and the ample choice for character creation, if I had to choose. The setting itself is less important because I usually just replace it or at least put some spin on it anyway.
If you're willing to deal with ESL 4chan homebrew, there's always Quixalted Extended. As far as I can tell, it was created as the anti-3e and embraced the memetic fanwanked power of 2e. The rules are comparatively simple without being rules-lite, and Charm system is more balanced and flexible than most other editions. Unfortunately, this is kneecapped by the writing making it hard to understand what the author meant a lot of the time.
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>>97464125
Noted, thank you.
>>97465704
I'll keep it as an option I guess.
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>>97466375
ESL is English Second Lang
Quix is in english, just that it may not have the idioms of a native speaker, you can just ask here for a clarification or write down a ruling if a section doesn't quite make sense
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Did the math on these numbers from the 1E Kingdom of Halta book
For easily I assume mean minimal Essence expenditure, like the equivalent jogging or walking.
For the other number, a wing of mortal soldiers (500), I assumed that means that they applied effort and expended much more Essence.
For a Solar Exalt, they can easily kill 20 mortal soldiers a minute, or 1200 in an hour. For Dragon-Blooded they can kill 5 mortal soldiers every 3 minutes, or 100 mortal soldiers an hour.
Extrapolating the 12x difference there, I applied it to if they're using "effort"
When applying effort, a Solar Exalted can kill 500 mortal soldiers every 3 minutes, or 10,000 mortal soldiers an hour. A Dragon-blooded applying effort can kill 13.5 mortals soldiers in a minute, and roughly 833 mortal soldiers in an hour.
Interesting statistics on lethality I think, but also using effort means that Essence reserves will run dry faster and that this kind of killing can't be kept up if the parties go full steam.
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>>97471348
>>97471438
1E had a much more rough-hewn version of the 2e mass combat rules known as "Mail and Steel". They can be found in the player's guide, but you might not want to see them, because, as noted, they were basically the 2e mass combat system but without the benefit of having the War Ability.
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>>97471467
>they were basically the 2e mass combat system but without the benefit of having the War Ability.
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Was it a good idea to give a limit break to Alchemicals?
>>97471720
>File name.
Doesn't think too hard about it, Exalted is one of those works that is under a pile of retcons & rewrites.
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>>97472006
See >>97471438
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>>97472188
If battlegroups are big and have lots of people and solars/dragon blooded can kill them quickly, then the amount of people that they can kill quickly is going to be pretty high.
>>97472205
I honestly thought they were using it as a lore statement for the setting as a whole, not for just a fun fact about 1e itself. My bad.
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I wonder how FA Solars reacted to I AM.
>>97472377
To be fair, WW tries to be synergistic between lore and mechanics.
As long it doesn't get in the way of their stories.
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>>97472377
Battlegroups for 3E are a good way to represent that a character can fight "lots of dudes", but it's a patch on a combat system that's unable to actually have your character individually fight a 1000 soldiers and win, because you'll mote-tap or be overwhelmed by the rules of the system because of action economy (aka 2E's mortals and sledgehammers) when in lore they don't have those problems when they're strong enough.
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>I wonder how FA Solars reacted to I AM
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>>97471169
>they can easily kill 20 mortal soldiers a minute
Interestingly this lines up with a combat round timing, each combat round in 1E is about 3 seconds, so apparently this means an "experienced" Solar (Essence 3? 4?) can casually a single mortal soldier every combat round
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>>97472506
Well, Abyssals might have been able to make it work with 1e-era Glorious Carnage Typhoon. It's pretty easy for an optimized Dusk to keep killing mortals with that until there aren't any more mortal targets left to kill.
>>97471720
1e used Performance instead of War. There was a lot piled onto Performance.
(If you ever find a 2e rules reference referring to the use of Performance, it's either because someone copy-pasted and forgot to revise it, or that they never bothered to learn the new rules in the first place.)
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>>97473900
>Well, Abyssals might have been able to make it work with 1e-era Glorious Carnage Typhoon. It's pretty easy for an optimized Dusk to keep killing mortals with that until there aren't any more mortal targets left to kill.
2E's Infinite (Ability) Mastery could let a Solar be very efficient facing mortals soldiers too even at the slightly weaker E3 version, combined with Fivefold Bulwark Stance.
I don't hate battlegroups, honestly because having to individually roll 1000 times to kill a 1000 guys would be both boring and time-consuming.
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Man, the Medicine tree in 1E is kinda wild
A lot of the Charms self-target first and then the next Charm in the tree allows you to use it on others
Also Body-Mending Meditation was originally in Medicine instead of Resistance, neat
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>>97474793
>enters a healing trance, during which she loses all awareness of the world around him
>prolonged periods of healing can leave a Solar helpless before her enemies
I've seen this doujin before and the idea that the Wyld Hunt are doing it to Solars is fucking amazing to me. They have the institutional knowledge, motivation, luck, and foresight to pull off a lot of stupid ideas too.
Admittedly it doesn't need to be anything too fancy. There are a lot of basically-instant-death things you could do to a tranced and unaware opponent in Exalted. Just feed the Solar unreasonable amounts of poison, you don't need to jump straight into manacles of night or whatever.
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>>97475231
A bunch of flavor got reduced for function in second edition too. And it's precisely because people were complaining about the flavorful stuff not being practical to actually use, or even sometimes being a net negative.
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>>97475218
>An exalt alone is an anomaly, you're supposed to have circlemates who will protect you while you heal
Exalted acting alone is actually the normal state, PCs drawing circles together is the anomoly. That whole circles of Exalted PCs form is a concession to playability but finding a group of prideful Exalted who don't let their massive personalities push each other away is very unusual in-character, a known force multiplier that escalates what's needed to take them down dramatically - in Cult of the Illuminated, groups of Anathema are explicitly called rare and more than one or maybe two Solars gathering immediately escalates to Dragonblooded investigators getting on the case, and if the Solars are confirmed to exist in a group, escalated directly past hitsquads to all-out offensives.
Exalted being more powerful in groups and those groups being unusual is the original reason that player characters were special. Because you were in a group by default, that immediately made you power players who could knock down almost anything in the Threshold and gave you a good chance at fending off the Wyld Hunt too. Obviously as editions went by PCs were given a lot more reasons to be special outside of just being Exalted in a party that doesn't immediately explode, but that's mostly bad writing imo.
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>>97475318
>More self-sufficient powers was a good thing.
I'm not sure exactly sure what you mean by 'self-sufficient powers'. Like, self-sufficient powers in the Threshold that weren't dependent on / satrapies of the Realm and relying on them for defense (especially against Anathema)? I'd agree. If you mean, I guess, 'charms without weaknesses' then I'd disagree, because I think they're often charming and useful despite or sometimes because of their weaknesses, whether because having flaws means they could be made more powerful, or just because they fit the vibe well.
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>>97475327
I used Powers as a shorthand for charms and other rules elements of direct character power (such as spells). More functional, practical abilities that are not a liability is always good for you as a player. While second edition often went too far in making abilities simply perfect, to the point where it was a war of non-interaction until death, it is still generally better to be able to count on your character specific abilities to handle the situations you got them for without worrying about an Achilles heel. This edition is cooked, but I think like the next one could be good if they would dial it back up a little more and maybe rethink artifacts finally so every team doesn't need a Tony Stark.
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>>97475350
>maybe rethink artifacts finally so every team doesn't need a Tony Stark.
Funnily enough I think 3e has been the least Tony Stark-requiring of all the editions, including Essence. Craft in 3e for most splats rewards a relatively small dip - for Solars, six charms lets you push out a powerful artifact 5 or N/A once per story, for Dragonblood the tree of abilities related to artifact crafting is just tiny in general and the way signatures are set up doubly encourages dips, and for Sidereals it's mostly more of the same to the point where half the craft tree is social charms and the capstone is 'don't engage with the craft system: the power'.
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>>97475374
>artifacts are still too strong
To be honest, not at all in my experience? They all take motes and the artifacts themselves tend to give relatively marginal benefits, and motes are in shorter supply in 3e than 1e/2e.
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Would 2e Subordinate Inspiration Technique (the one where you whisper words into someone's mind they think are their own thoughts) translate the meaning of the words if you were to speak to them in a language they don't know?
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>>97475673
>There's more to artifacts than just personal gear. That's always been child's play
The artifacts beyond personal gear that're available in 3e don't seem that impressive either. The Golden Viper and Brass Legionaries are 1CD tier and the Veil that Holds Back Time replicates a second circle spell. Basically everything up to 4-dot could have been a charm and are usually overcosted as hell on motes.
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>>97475293
I think it is just the Green Lantern syndrome affecting the setting in general; in settings where multiple special people exist, over time, what first made these people special will start to be seen as banal/basal by the writers, with more specialness categories being created to make a given character more special.
Example; you aren't just a Solar*, you are the solar master of volcano cutter who unlocked a never before seen set of evocations from it.
*Mathematically speaking, there are only 30 Solars per direction.
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>>97475742
>>97475752
>>97475754
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>>97475710
I mean yeah, but the flipside is what the hell does Artifact N/A mean in 3e other than 'whatever your Storyteller will let you get away with'. In that way they scale directly to sorcerous workings, and one of them isn't very easy to distinguish from ten of them. Our examples in 3e are 'cosplay as a celestial exalt, but only if you're mortal', 'a warstrider', and 'another warstrider'.
Even in 1e/2e the range is wild. Some of the stuff that's N/A seems to have just been misfiled because somebody was lazy, like the Book of Three Circles or the Procedures of Creation which basically don't have any powers for themselves or only have minor powers like 'print copies of one specific book, also have unlimited pages' that would've been more appropriate for a three dot artifact, or like the River Province flood controls or Realm Defense Grid, both of which are manse networks rather than single N/A manses. Then on the other hand you've got the Eye of Autochthon or the Five-Metal Shrike each of which, narratively or mechanically respectively, have solid chances of going 1vWorld and coming out on top.
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>>97475405
>the least unusual Devil-Body
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>>97475754
>*Mathematically speaking, there are only 30 Solars per direction.
Putting on my autistic correction glasses here: you assume an equal distribution here, but we know that isn't accurate. The Scavenger Lands and the East in general host more essence-users than any other Direction (according to Sidereals when it talks about the Convention on Essence Wielders) and the Scavenger Lands both make sense as a place to have an unusually large distribution of Exalted because of the more tolerant Wyld Hunt (Lookshy excludes the Immaculate Order and it's own Hunt only targets Anathema who make a geopolitical impact, even if they do come down harder than the Realm's Hunt when that happens) and because of the Hundred Kingdoms being Exalt-dense to the point they're said to host one Exalt per ten thousand mortals (for scale, imagine that Harborhead contained every Threshold Exalt including all outcaste DBs, that's the kind of Exalt density we're talking).
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Always the guy planning to start out. Forgive me for returning here and asking what may seem inane questions, but I like to look into things before committing and I trust you guys' judgement and experience over a google search.
There's a fair number of splats, for basically any edition, but the core rulebooks alone offer a shitload of content. What books would you say are good to have at hand to improve a campaign? I see some people offering bundles of second hand books, like the compendiums for 1st or 2nd edition, and was wondering if it's worth getting them or I shouldn't bother.
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>>97475972
>What books would you say are good to have at hand to improve a campaign?
I'll point out first that you can try before buying if you want to check out the links up in the threadhead. That being said, I would want to have the corebook on hand, and while not necessary if I could have it I would want to have the 2e Compass of Terrestrial Direction for whichever Direction the game was happening in and/or 1e's Scavenger Sons which covers the basics of every Direction.
I personally like staring at stuff like spells and artifacts until ideas pop out when I'm trying to think of a quick "20 minute" adventure to jump into, and 1e's Book of Three Circles, Savant and Sorcerer, 2e's Wonders of the Lost Age, Black and White Treatise, or 3e's corebook work for me there (I like staring blankly at the sorcerous workings section specifically, something usually clicks after a few minutes there).
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>>97475818
>and because of the Hundred Kingdoms being Exalt-dense to the point they're said to host one Exalt per ten thousand mortals
I don't think it is possible, since of the 50+ exalted mentioned in the Caste books, only 1 or 2 are from it.
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>>97476024
>I don't think it is possible, since of the 50+ exalted mentioned in the Caste books, only 1 or 2 are from it.
It would be kind of funny to find that the number is because almost every Outcaste Dragonblood has been converging on the Hundred Kingdoms over the last few hundred years and all of it's myriad dynasties are actually DBs just one unifier away from becoming Realm 2 Scavenger Lands Boogaloo.
>>97476045
There are a few native Solars in the West yeah. I don't think canon Exalted is actually representative of population demographics though.
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>>97476027
The scavenger lands seems to have been made to compensate for the blessed isle.
When they do regional distribution, it is common for 2 to be put in the east, with one in the Scavenger Lands and the second in the far east.
For example, in the Caste book dawn; Demetheus of the south, Yurgen to the north, Lyta exiled to the west, and Dace & Jalith are respectively from near and far east.
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>>97475997
Duly noted, thank you.
>try before buying
We are going to do just that, I'm gonna print out the essence quickstart PDF and see how it goes. Then again, I don't mind having books around, I have fun reading them, and they may come in handy sooner or later. I do prefer physical copies both for reading and playing.
The difference is that if I only need an item or rule from a book I may not bother getting the whole book and just print out the pages I need, if the book in general has a fair number of useful stuff and maybe some good fluff, getting it is not a problem.
Unless it gets more expensive, like the 3rd ed book. I'm waiting to get that until I'm sure people is committed, or I really get hooked on the system/setting and really want to have more.
I was mainly asking about the old compendiums because there are stores selling stuff like the second ed one at literally 5 bucks, probably because it's old now, and other books for 1st and 2nd ed are pretty cheap second hand.
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>>97436305
Another new Essence ST.
For first time rpg players is it better to let them pick from all different splats?
would you make them have to each pick a different caste/aspect?
Of course, Essence is built on "everything goes", but I think a single-splat game would allow for more time exploring the world from a single general point of view and connection with the past, that way the experience of playing the next splat would be more rewarding (Also, does it have to be solars?). Or maybe the lower number of charms and the diminished focus on the individual powers and themes of each splat in Essence is actually the reason a gm should hand out the full crayon box of splats, rather than a single one.
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>>97476230
>For first time rpg players is it better to let them pick from all different splats?
In Essence specifically, probably. In any other edition I'd say it's better to stick to one splat for your first game because it lets you run a more cohesive story based around that specific splat's concerns without having to worry about anybody else, but in Essence specifically you have to worry about people going in different directions a bit less because Ventures are a better way to resolve downtime activities than we had before, and because there's less content per splat and that content is less split up, so it's harder to have a bunch of people in one without them getting same-y (unless it's Sidereals, who spread outside of their Exalt-specific stuff more because of their martial arts access).
>would you make them have to each pick a different caste/aspect?
Maybe? I personally am a big fan of parties that are all one concept and exploring the differences within that idea (three priests, but with different gods and philosophies; four sorcerers, with completely different spell lists and ways they operate; two rival gladiators, in the game for entirely different reasons; and so on) but you do need to have all of the players on board with that cohesive idea for it to work out exceptionally well. I also understand that most GMs like to have their players have a well-rounded skillset and variety of abilities so that it's harder to blindside them with something offbeat, and having people in different castes is like training wheels on that. This is all out the window if they all want to be Casteless Lunars specifically, which can do anything and would probably work just find if you did that in any context.
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>>97477581
There's a giant merit to represent you being freakishly large by human standards. Actual giants would be Wyld-creatures, or that Earth Elemental that has a charm to throw meteors at people
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>>97478105
Sure. Again, though, there already is a nonhuman giant species that has nothing to do with the Wyld, and there's no particular reason why some of the other pre-Primordial War races, remnants of which might still exist somewhere if ST so desires, couldn't be equally big.
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>>97481737
>Aren't familiars legitimately stronger, though?
nta but how strong a mechanic is and how much it sucks aren't correlated. Craft is strong, some would claim the strongest, and it's still hot ass sucking garbage.
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>>97476478
they use the same skeleton of the storyteller system a la the old world of darkness: d10s, numbers are dice pools, stats 1-5 in standard play. the stipulations from there diverge a lot: each of the 4 versions has noncommunicable rules, even 3e/essence which are touted to be similar enough to use some of the same books but has such terrible conversion you have to make most of the assets again from scratch anyway. each hard number edition has a lore standard that's different but those are perhaps the simplest workarounds, though it then becomes a matter of finding the lore you want across all the books or making your own and then making sure the stats work