Exalted General - /exg/

So has anyone had a game or an idea on how to stop the Neverborn? If so what strategies were used?

I came up with a couple ideas for fun that if the players wanted to I would allow in my games. Both are based off of the idea that Lethe is keeping the Neverborn afloat. Basically since the Primordials made Lethe to recycle souls it is attempting to recycle the Primordial's souls but it cannot.

So the first idea is an attempt to reincarnate the Neverborn. One such method would be to go and defeat each Hektonare/Dead 3rd Circle for each Neverborn and capture it's soul through various forms of Necromancy. Next you learn as much as you can about the Primordial that each Neverborn was. Find its arcane signature and style through lots of time in the Labyrinth and perhaps some insanity so you can understand the Primordial that was fully.

Then you transform a group of willing mortals who closely represent what the old 3rd Circle Souls used to be while it was alive into what would essentially be 3rd circle souls and end it with a massive grouping of 3rd Circle Solar workings culminating on a ritual during Calibration and birth a new Primordial. Using what you know about the Neverborn's soul and life you use Lethe to stick the soul into the new Primordial's body. Then you have a bunch of what used to be mortals as its control and giving it a amalgamation of their personalities.

Now due to being mortals they should not look down on humanity as much as the old Primordials did and with the threat of force against the Exalted they should be very well adjusted to the new Creation. Then you do this each time for each Neverborn. It is a long process but this was never going to be easy. It is also very humane for the most part. Although I am not sure what Yu Shan might think about you bringing back more Primordials.

>>48044634

The second idea while far simpler in process I have no idea how to accomplish and has far more devastating consequences. Basically you destroy Lethe. This would stop the reincarnation of Souls and would drop the Neverborn into the abyss along with every ghost and every soul when something dies. You could I guess reroute souls after you destroy lethe into a different process like a Heaven or something but it causes a lot of problems for soul allocation as well as souls permanently being lost to the Void.

Anyone else have any ideas?

Also what is your opinion of if the Neverborn are destroyed/reincarnated the Great Curse is removed. With their ability to cure Abyssals of the Curse they seem to have some sort of control over it to do so. If there are no more Neverborn maintaining the Curse it should simply disappear no?

>>48044634
Finding out anything concrete about the dead titans seems like a tall order, considering how much has been lost since their time, and also considering the fact that their inner workings and deepest secrets may well be something that was never known to anyone except themselves.

>>48044648
>The second idea while far simpler in process I have no idea how to accomplish and has far more devastating consequences. Basically you destroy Lethe. This would stop the reincarnation of Souls and would drop the Neverborn into the abyss along with every ghost and every soul when something dies.
I'm not sure why it would work like that. Wouldn't destroying Lethe just lead to far more ghosts lingering in the Underworld and little else?

Personally, I kind of prefer to view the Neverborn as, I dunno, gigantic corpses filled with echoes or something like that? Scars left by the deaths of Primordials more than ghosts of said Primordials? Something like that. Not really active entities, not something to stop, not a threat to Creation in themselves, but a source of power, knowledge and madness for people who spend too much time studying them.

>>48045062
> I kind of prefer to view the Neverborn as, I dunno, gigantic corpses filled with echoes or something like that?
I guess that's what they are. Even if they have some emblance of sentience they are completely mad, trapped in their own nightmares and suffering. Someone who went deep into the Labirynth and listened long enough to their Whispers, all that without dying or going mad, could potentially discern some patterns or maybe even traces of intent. And that's enough if that someone is a Deathlord. But I guess that's the approach 3E devs have taken. They've said repeatedly how they want to shift focus from Yozis to Third and Seond Circle Demons and I guess that also applies to moving the spotlight from Neverborn to better-fleshed out Deatlords and adding another players to Underworld.

Can you have a symbiotic relationship with a ghost? He needs prayers and a way to interact with the world, you need ghostly magic. Can a ghost and a mortal decides to share the same body to perform supernatural feats?

I know resources are vague or abstract in Exalted, but I have a specific question in mind. How much do mercenaries in Creation get paid or should get paid? For example, i'm curious how much would the head of a blood ape be worth if it cause a lot of trouble? Is a hobgoblin worth a lot? is a fair folk noble worth a lot? So on and so forth.

Exxxalted when

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>>48044570
This is the map I'll use for my game. Tear it apart /tg/

>>48046065
Medo?

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What's the most efficient way to spend BP at chargen: Bumping critical Attributes to 5 or bumping critical Abilities to 5?

>>48046408
Critical abilities. Attributes cost FUCKTONS of BP

>>48046065
Approximate scale?

>>48046387
What's medo?

>>48046408
Abilities.

Attribute 4->5: 3/4 BP or 16xp
Favored Ability 4->5: 1BP or 9xp
(Unfavored Ability 4->5: 2BP or 10xp)

>>48044634
Honestly I think theres a much simpler approach. The neverborn themselves are dead. They can only act through proxies, deathlords or abyssals or nephwraks or various other underworld things. If creation ever got unified again and managed to take care of the deathlords then it could probably just handle the rest of the things as they come. Like sure every now and again some weird thing may come from the underworld, but the exalted will probably just be able to handle it. The only reason they had 13 super powered deathlords like they do know is because no one was paying enough attention as they were just all split to far.

>>48045865
That mostly depends on how good the mercenary in question is. I mean demons running around usually aren't a super big problem since they dont really get out on their own alot. If he's good enough to take them though then i suppose its only a matter of finding people willing to pay enough to get pretty rich pretty fast. Resources 3 or 4 id say with skills like those.

>>48046453
Medo is a region of Creation looking like a crossover between Transylvania, Ottoman Empire and Eastern Europe.

>>48046387
Eeh, pretty close.

>>48046453
>Approximate scale?
500 miles from the westmost point of the middle empire to Yesserechny circa.

>>48046530
middle state* not empire... I need to get some sleep.

>>48046456
In my head canon, the Neverborn are - like all ghosts - bound to the world by Intimacies. The problem is: they're too far gone to have Intimacies of their own.

So if everyone would just forget about them, off they go into whatever comes after a Primordial dies.


Would make for an awesome Inception-style campaign, where you would need to rewrite the memories of Creation and beyond...

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>>48046065
What's the population density and city frequency in those hundreds of miles of empty area? How much is "not drawing this bit" versus "nothing interesting here"? Pic related, see Tangiers and Ceuta in close proximity, then nothing for a thousand miles of Africa, while Spain has lots of dots.

You might consider somehow marking the main roads/routes of travel up here, those can serve as clean indicators of settlement, since smaller cities would presumably be found along them.

What are good, fairly reusable antagonists for Solars who are in an area that is very far from the Realm and beyond the reach of the Wyld Hunt?

>>48047142

Other Solars, Lunars, Abyssals, Fae, Gods.
Be more specific.

>>48047142
Regenerating Chimerae.

>>48047176
>Solars, Lunars, Abyssals
These aren't really reusable, because if the PCs kill them, it stretches credibility to keep throwing them at the PCs. Whereas with DBs, for example, there's like twenty thousand so you can reasonable have multiple fights with them in a given area.

>>48047257
>>Solars, Lunars, Abyssals
>These aren't really reusable, because if the PCs kill them, it stretches credibility to keep throwing them at the PCs.
Abyssals still work for that. Their Deathlords can just make more when they're killed.

>>48047257

I misinterpreted "reusable" for "recurring." You could feasibly have a Solar that escapes via Stealth, Athletics, or the Twiliight Anima Banner. Lunars can simply shapeshift.

>>48047303
Then they're E1 chumps the players can clown on.

>>48046048
You know the drill. How cute is your character? My standards get higher and higher by each cute things my current players do.

>>48044634
>So has anyone had a game or an idea on how to stop the Neverborn?
I think the most common idea of how to deal with the Neverborn is in the vein of the endings of all things that linger in the Underworld: bring them peace and acceptance of their death or cast them into Oblivion. Getting the the Neverborn to move on could involve any number of solutions, from sacrificing all Creation to atone for their murders to sacrificing the Primordials' most treasured things (the Games of Divinity might be a good start) to listening to their whispers to understand their torment and questing to resolve the tethers that bind them to their cursed half existence.

It may be possible to destroy the Neverborn through application of destructive force (or perhaps by some other, more esoteric means), but I tend to think that approach would cause more trouble than it solves.

I hasten to take issue with the precise phraseology of your question, though. I think the Neverborn have already been pretty definitively "stopped". They don't really do much anymore. They can only barely be said to exist. They are more like an ambient, destructive force of nature than villains.

For what it's worth, here's some stuff Neph wrote back on the old forums.

http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/Thus_Spake_Zaranephilpal/MalfeanDeath

>>48047352
They're a pretty qt little boy.

>>48047744
Tell me more about that.

>>48044648
>Also what is your opinion of if the Neverborn are destroyed/reincarnated the Great Curse is removed.

I don't think so, no. My interpretation is that the Great Curse is something that was caused by the Malfeans and is under their power but exists independently of them. Depending on how they are destroyed, though, they might choose to lift the Great Curse as they go, though.

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>>48047760
Cake loving, seafaring, diplomatic little boy.

>>48047832
nah i dont like little boys

>>48046887
You're right... I will add the main streets and think of a population density for it all.

As for the population, I was thinking that about 75.000.000 people should be alright. Linowan, Fae and criminals notwithstanding.

>>48048366
Doesn't sound like you are >>48047760 to me

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>>48048429
I am.

>>48046887
>How much is "not drawing this bit"
A lot of it. It was just a rough draft to start off with, I'm going to expand on it more as time goes by.

>>48048455
dubs confirm.

But why did you ask to know more if you don't like little boys? Doesn't sound very logical to me

>>48048366
That's cool. I didn't really know anything about your game, your players or anything else, so it's kind of hard to get invested or appeal to your tastes like that.

>>48048485
Maybe he likes little cute boys but not cute 'little' boys.

>>48048485
Even if I don't, there could be something interesting about it. Now, if you'll be a little boy who's also a milf-hunter, now that changes things.

>>48048495
Even when ERPing, we must not betray our own principles. Only then will we be true traitors.

>>48048562
>Even when ERPing, we must not betray our own principles.
See though, my principals are far and wide, hence why it's best to know what I'm dealing with, so we can find the most overlap within principles.

For example, Milf-hunter? Perfectly fine and down with that, size difference and shotadom are some of my great likes after all.

>>48047772

The Great Curse is a death curse of the slayed Primordials. That was the same in every edition. It says it right on page 134 in 3e. The Malfeans have no power over it. In 2e they were able to alter it to make urges but not eliminate it. The only beings who can remove the Great Curse have been Neverborn. That was replaced with resonance (which was just the Neverborn being jerks and is assumed to be replaced) but it was said that if an Abyssal was ever redeemed his Exaltation would be Curse free as a Solar.

>>48048608
Okay, you're in. I hope you're into netorare too. My self-inset is nailing a lady and I want you to steal her from me, got that?

>>48049095

"Malfeans" was the 1E term for the Neverborn; it's never been a term for the Yozi.

So, I have a player that made a supernal Stealth night caste, and as part of his assassin tool kit took Perfect Shadow Stillness, Stalking Wolf Attitude, and the Belt of Shadow Walking Artifact.

Because it's what he invested a lot into, I have no problem allowing him to use these charms to basically one shot most anything that's not a celestial exalt-tier opponent (it's hard for anything below that to beat his maxed out stealth pool + excellency + rerolls from Perfect Shadow Stillness), and they haven't come up against such an opponent yet.

My question is, what is the best way for such an opponent to counter this stealth combo, apart from simply having a supernal awareness type being (i.e. awareness dice pools matching his, excellencies, Eye of the Unconquered Sun, etc.)?

The main problem arises because his stealth combo allows him to accumulate pretty high initiative values fairly quickly while being hard to harm because no one can reliably find him. Any ideas?

>>48049721
Charms in question:

>Perfect Shadow Stillness
Cost: 1m, 1wp; Mins: Stealth 2, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Lawgiver’s stealth technique is honed until it’s flawless.
Perfect Shadow Stillness allows a reroll of any Stealthbased
action, preserving the 10s from those results and
rerolling the remaining dice. At Stealth 5, succeeding at a
stealth attempt with this Charm awards the Solar one
point of temporary Willpower.

>Stalking Wolf Attitude
Cost: 5m; Mins: Stealth 4, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Blinding Battle Feint
The Solar stalks her prey unseen, waiting for the perfect
moment to strike. While concealed, the Solar uses this
technique to focus on an opponent. Feeling along the
pulse of the world’s Essence, she stalks her target from
the shadows, her veins coursing with lethal readiness.
With this Charm, the Solar ignores the -3 penalty to
Stealth rolls for moving while concealed. In addition, on
each round in which she succeeds at the contested roll
to evade detection by her mark, she gains an amount of
Initiative equal to her extra successes on the roll. When
the Exalt senses the perfect moment to strike, she may
then leap from concealment to unleash a decisive attack,
as long as she’s been hidden by this Charm for at least
a round.

For each round that she remains under the effects of this
Charm, the Solar gains a mounting -1 penalty to her Stealth
rolls, and if she is discovered or if she voluntarily leaves
concealment or terminates the Charm without making a decisive attack, she loses all of the Initiative she gained
through her most recent activation of the Charm.

>>48049127
Come on Anon, step up the trolling.

>>48049766
That's no trolling though. Being partial to netorare is a requisite to enter.

>>48049721
Something with surprise negator. Or maybe some charm allowing for attacking stealthed foes and forcing them to move away from you. Or maybe clash working only against attack from surprise or ambush. Dunno, I have no mechanical experience and I'm just shooting at the dark.

>>48049205
Now that's what I call misleading. I can see why they gave up on that.

>>48049800
If you actually wanted someone in, you'd have probably given some sort of contact details

>>48049721

The same thing happens with Single Point stylists, so the answer is the same: Damage limiters. Things with Legendary Size heavily cripple this build or at least force him to make battles significantly longer if he cannot do multi-attacks. Dread Gear Fortification, a charm possessed by Viator of Nullspace in 2e, allowed him (for free) to halt any and all damage from wrapping over into his next health level batch. Meaning if you attack does 52 levels of damage and he has 1x -0 health catagory and 16x -1 health levels, only the -0 is filled out and the other 51 levels are completely and utterly wasted.

Its worth reminding that Viator of Nullspace was a BBEG, but charms of this guideline should help you make opponents of 2CD tier class to fight him reasonably.

I'm curious, how do Tya refer to one another?
As I understand it they're not like Dereth in that you can call them what they present as; a male Dereth is a he and a female Dereth is a she.

Tya are just sort of.... there.

>>48049819
This is a great idea, thank you!

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>>48049929
Do they all talk like this person, and just refer to themselves as "this one" and other tya as "that one"?

Do fair folk eat emotions dreams or souls?

>>48050189
Yes.

>>48044634
>playing Exalted
>writing out multiple paragraphs describing how you would solve a problem
>not just punching it harder

>>48046516
Not to be confused with Meido, a town popular due to the high number of maid cafes.

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>>48046516
I believe that one of these fellows is supposed to be a Medoan abyssal.

>>48046048
Have you read the preform and presence charm trees? The answer is always.

>>48044634

I recall one game where the only way to ever permanently get rid of them was to not only convince them to pass on, but to somehow make a device that can finally left them pass peacefully away while the fighters combat the inevitable hoards of ghosts that will try to stop it.

It sounded more awesome when I read about it.

Thread-Bumping Technique.

Performance or Presence, guys?

>>48050588
dubs confirm the truth

>>48056394

For general purposes, Presence. Because trying to frame every piece of social influence as a song or dance gets old quick.

Has anyone tried implementing exalted social combat in other Storyteller/Storytelling games? Does it work?

>>48056394
Presence. Performance has some neat tricks, but Presence is more broadly useful, and things like Fulminating Word or Countenance of Vast Wrath are really sweet.

>>48049819
Octavian has similar charm in the 3E core, The Tower Still Stands. Makes him gain a point of initiative from each box of damage he is about to take and if a single attack would completely fill his boxes of one type the rest of the damage is negated but he still gains initiative. Very powerful stuff.

>>48049721
Well, a good thing to make your stealth player sweat a bit more is to have the combat take place in a situation where there is next to no shadows or easy spots to hide behind, especially if there are other Exalted combatants around with Animas flaring and everything. Make them work for their stealth actions.

Also remember that the Belt gives charm dice like all artifacts unless otherwise specified, so no stacking that with excellency.

>>48056937

I find Countenance of Vast Wrath to be way overpriced. I mean, it's practically 13m, 1wp, 3a - or 20m, 2wp, 3a if you want to get Terrifying Apparition of Glory up again and you're not E5, which you probably do.

Even my threaten-specced Presence supernal didn't bother taking it - I just stopped at Terrifying Apparition. The -1 intiative thing is good if you're going for a tanky character, but if you've got CoVW, then you're probably Supernal Presence, and likely not too tanky.

>>48044634
or you could just convince a single infernal to steal their identity. sounds like about the same thing as your first idea

>>48044648
...why would the curse disappear if the ones who can remove it are killed?

>>48048366
good this was a test. you passed

--the fbi

>>48044634
In how me and my friends do lore, nobody is really trying to stop the Neverborn. Partially because most people don't know they exist, but mostly because aside from being a malign influence on Creation by virtue of their very existence... they don't really have enough presence of mind or sapience or consciousness to do anything proactive.

They don't have plots or plans or schemes. They have dreams that spiral out into existence like tendrils of rotation and infect minds and souls who speak of their new devotion and thrallhood to magnificent beings who bring horror and tears by their very comprehension. These isolated madmen may start cults that worship monsters like Nephwracks, open shadowlands, etc. But this is seen as the actions of madmen, so rare that few could draw connections between them in the face of more prominent and reasonably minded death cultists, all of the madness resolved by heroes, if at all.

And somewhere the Neverborn sleep, and somewhere, one stirs and dreams another horrifying dream.

>>48057736
>tendrils of rot.*
We'll done autocorrect.

>>48056906

I tried doing a similar feature for my PF game, but the gronard at my group RRREEEE'd for even suggesting a change to the system.

>>48058427
Well shit. I'll try it anyway and hope nobody spergs.

>>48057143
>Also remember that the Belt gives charm dice like all artifacts unless otherwise specified, so no stacking that with excellency.

I know that the artifact gives charm dice, but you can add more excellency dice up to your Ability + Attribute limit, no?

Meaning, if the belt grants 3 dice, and the character has 10 Dex+stealth, he could add another 7 dice with excellencies without breaking any rules or the cap, no?

>>48056394
presence is better for convincing individuals, performance is better for whole people groups.

>>48059270

yes.

>>48059282
By the way, does anyone else kind of wish that giving speeches was Presence, with Performance being just for artistic performances?

Does the anathema 3e source code thing actually work? I'm not great at computers but following the instructions I still can't get the thing to start.

>>48059978
Eh, commanding the attention of and speaking to a large crowd is a distinct skill from one on one conversation. It's perfectly appropriate to treat it as performance.

I'd let you switch to presence with a stunt tho.

>>48056394
Performance. At the low end, it's a legitimate moneymaking skill that doesn't draw pointed questions; at the high end, sometimes you gotta get an entire country in on your musical number.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MOUsDox-zQ
God/Goddess of Black Midi? They'd probably be called something like "whatshis/herface of the Black Cascade" and give their Exigent a charm that lets them vomit sprays of Mote-infused death.

>>48060375

A good time ago, maybe two months, someone posted in the thread an image of it working after being compiled. Personally, I could never make heads nor tails of Gradle.

Someone else on OPP has made an attempt at creating their own chargen software, but I've not tried it.

http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/exalted/882498-new-anathema-character-management-anathema-reincarnated

>>48059978
>>48060546
You can use Presence if you don't mind the penalty for talking to crowds.

What do you guys use for character sheets?

I've fallen back to Notepad. (Technically Notepad++) after a series of experiences with so many dedicated charsheet app/template/site/whatevers being shit in various ways:
*some section is stupid tiny, like 5-word space for charm descriptions
*sheet is nice and compact, but thing I want is missing
*thing I want is there, but sheet is bloated to five pages with Craft color point tracking, Craft project types and progress tracking, a billion slots for intimacies just in case I have more intimacies than I have charms, and combat statline spaces that could hold every weapon in the Gate of Babylon

>>48063256
I use the char sheet in the OP with all the formulas and shit. Seems to have worked pretty well for me so far.

>>48063256

Still waiting for Anathema to hit.

>>48063385
>never ever
:(

Was there a hombrew evocations tree for the tailismen?

>>48063256
I made my own google sheet, but the one in the OP is good too.
I like that it can calculate values for me, but that I can also adjust them based on houserules, charms or other misc bonuses.
I really prefer the ability to fit in what parts you actually need, and adjust the space in case you do have lots of intimacies or spells or whatever.
I quite like having all the charms listed out in a way that's easy to search and skim, and the full charm text being viewable when I need it.

>>48059978
nah

>>48063490
I think I saw one of those on the onyx path artifact workshop.

>>48065474
i thought it was its own thread so i was just searching through all the old threads and couldnt find anything. That might explain it

Are elementals restricted to representing elements?
How could you use one to power a warstrider, or a ship?

>>48068873
>Are elementals restricted to representing elements?
Uh, yes, that's kind of the whole thing of it.

>How could you use one to power a warstrider, or a ship?
By enslaving it and telling it to turn a crank.

>>48068958
What sort of crank would it turn into? How could I enslave it?

>>48068975
>What sort of crank would it turn into?
A turgid one.

>How could I enslave it?
Name all the ways that people enslaved other people. Now add magic to the mix on top.

What are elementals even in this edition?

>>48069009

The same thing they always were: when a lot of elemental essence gathers, it naturally congeals into spirits. Elementals.

Usually elementals are temporary, fading back as things even out, but stronger or more willful ones can linger, growing stronger and becoming dragons.

>>48069194
No, I mean, what are they, in the setting? Gods are bureaucratic fags taking kickbacks, demons are eternal prisoners and slaves, what are elementals?

>>48069214

Ahh. In those terms I'd probably consider them wildcards. Free agents with no real politics to hold them back, who vouch on the behalf of Creation itself.

Gods are bureaucrats, demons are the underclass, and elementals are the vigilantes.

>>48069214
When plenty of air essence gathers in one place, elementals called wind bears congeal to make sure the clouds are acting like they should. When a storm front is there, stormbirds come to make sure the storm happens. Elementals hanging around a hot spring are usually either water or fire ones depending on which part of the spring is more important or bigger thing, the heat or the water. Sometimes when those both are in balance the elementals are some sort of mix of those two elements.

All in all elementals are kinda vaguely split in three groups: ones that are there to make sure element related things (aka pretty much everything that isn't either a mortal or spirit of some sort) work/exist as they should, elementals that just exist because they do (like some wood spiders who lurk around ancient forests) and the lesser elemental dragons.

The lesser elemental dragons stand apart from their other elemental brethren in that they are much more powerful, have wider repertoire of charms, are much more respected and intelligent. They usually have very powerful stations as censors and such, overseeing the celestial laws.

Since the celestial bureaucracy is kinda in shambles in 3E the elementals have been pretty much left on their own to do as they think things are supposed to go, often pushing natural processes to imbalance. Maybe the water elementals are slacking off at the hot spring and meanwhile the fire dudes are doing what they are meant to do, make the water hotter. So then the water ends up burning the bathers and setting the town around them on fire and everything is ruined forever and the water dudes flip them off and go away. Over time the imbalance of fire turns the area into a desolate wasteland with bubbling lava pools.

Meanwhile the local lesser elemental dragon or the head of the local elemental court is busy sipping mojitos and enjoying his painting hobby and doesn't stop this from happening.

>>48069499
Are elementals material?

>>48069587

They're naturally material, yes. I think the weaker ones can't dematerialize at all.

>>48069587
In 3E, yes. They are also not immortal, unlike gods are, since they die when you kill them. They are, however, ageless and if they survive long enough they slowly transform to lesser elemental dragons which are each unique in their form. Once they transform, they gain access to the basic spirit charms, like Dematerialize and Measure the Wind.

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I made most of a thing. No playtesting with it yet, but it might be relevant in my game sometime soon. Any clarifications I should make as well as suggestions?

>>48070198
Why is your martial art flipping me the bird?

>>48060546
>Eh, commanding the attention of and speaking to a large crowd is a distinct skill from one on one conversation. It's perfectly appropriate to treat it as performance.
On the other hand, playing a violin is also a distinct skill from figuring out what kind of speech might appealto a particular crowd and then delivering that speech with suitable eloquence. Having one skill for speaking, whether to an individual or a crowd, is in no way less sensible or appropriate than having one skill for everything Performance currently represents. Maybe not more sensible or appropriate either, but certainly not less.

So if you need to build initiative before using a decisive attack, how would a sniper assassin work since killing someone in one shot is impossible?

>>48071965
Join Battle, faggot.

Or treat your opponent as a trivial one.

>>48071965
By rolling Dexterity+Archery against a difficulty set by the ST instead of using the combat system. The combat system is meant to represent combat, not one-sided one-hit murder. If a character seems too powerful or important for it to be appropriate for him to die to a single roll like that, then it's probably for the best that he isn't killed by a sniper with no chance to fight back. In a situation like that, when using the combat system, a sniper assassin could go for an immediate Decisive, hoping for a really lucky roll and reluing on inflicting some wound penalties at the very least. Alternatively, he could start off with a Withering attack, in which case the target would notice the sun glinting off the head of the arrow or something just in time to defend himself, but would still be left off balance by a successful attack.

>>48071946
And Craft is completely insensible in light of all the other unified skills.

>>48070198

Breath and Essence Control should be about 4m, 5m is a little too much.

Close Your Eyes and Look: Nice, but to much of a "HA HA, GOTCHA SUCKER!" moment. I'd make it so you'd need to beat the Guile of your opponent with a certain roll in order to use this charm and the opponent can spend a WP to resist. A few charms back in 2e were lamblasted for the same reason this charm was.

Form: All gambits are way, way too strong. Being immune to disarms AND Grapples is like having part of Immortal Blade and Freedom Stone from 2e in one (And MUCH more!) The rest of the form is fine, but the immunity to gambits is lunacy.

Garda Force: Why does the Terrestial effect gain a straight upgrade? You mean this as a mastery bonus correct?

Wood King: Essence gain that is this easy is terrible. Blow it up and try again.

Grave Cut: This is better than TAP in every way and TAP was nutty to start with. Blow this up and start again.

A good first start, but I feel as if the style is mainly a random bunch of charms at this point rather than a single cohesive style other MA's in 3e are.

>>48072034
Yeah. Personally I like different kinds of crafters having some mechanical differentiation, but then again I'd also like the same for different kinds of performers. Different kinds of melee fighters, too and so on. I'd prefer differentiation to be found from Charms, though, not from a variety of Abilities. A lot of distinct Charms, distinct Charm trees, maybe Charms that interact with Specialties one way or another, but also broad, unified base Abilities.

I have a Dawn with Melee Supernal, Invincible Fury of the Dawn is their biggest thing. What should my combat strategy look like? I figure the Brawl's big-ass opener style isn't really applicable here, and I'd be more suited to gain a bunch of initiative first, right?

>>48071965
If you need to be a sniper in combat, have good stealth an pick up stalking wolf attitude. It only has one prerequisite (that lets you join battle with dex+stealth) and it lets you make a stealth roll to gain initiative. Stealth charms on top of that and whatever ranged attacky charms you choose to use are just gravy. You may not be able to open with fuck you, you're dead but that wouldn't be very cool anyway.

So anyone have any ideas what kind of powers you could get from an artifact pin emblemed with your Familiar to empower it? I think the survival charms do a pretty encompassing job of effects and I am running on empty in the creativity department lately but I wanted something for stylistic purposes.

>>48061131
>>48063256

I'll also spruik my in-development chargen tool.

https://loom.webtelligence.com.au

It's designed for mobile (also available as an android app), so the UI interactions are mobilish. Click-and-hold to modify stuff, click for information.

Designed to be used as a digital charactersheet in play, as well as for chargen.

>>48072034

My preference is for both Craft and Performance requiring specialties in distinct niches, in the same manner as Lore.

>>48072079
>Form: All gambits are way, way too strong. Being immune to disarms AND Grapples is like having part of Immortal Blade and Freedom Stone from 2e in one (And MUCH more!) The rest of the form is fine, but the immunity to gambits is lunacy.

Instead of flat immunity, increase the difficulty of all gambits against you by X.

>>48072079

I'll change breathing and essence control as you have said. 5m is a bit much.

I do like the guile idea on Close your Eyes and Look. So i'll tinker with that a bit.

Did I really write the form charm that bad? I thought it said you were only immune to disarm gambits, not ALL gambits. Though I do think that what the other anon said about the increased difficulty is good.

In regards to garda force the terrestrial keyword means the opponents blade has a better chance of resisting being shattered. I might need to do some clarifying.

On wood king, I pretty much dropped that one over at a 1 to 1 ratio. I didnt figure it was all that crazy considering you have to decisive to use it. I suppose I should at least cap it off, but i'll try to think of something else.

Grave Cut did a lot back in 2e as well, but perfect defenses tended to let that happen. I'll look into what I should do with it. In 2e it doubled post soak damage after rolling too, so I felt that because TAP did this the effect was okay to keep. Martial arts charms also tended to be very strong so I just kind of went with what felt right. I didnt want it to just feel like TAP but essence 3 and applied after the roll. So I added some more effects to it. Maybe i'll rethink this one entirely.

I always felt that Even Blade was a somewhat disconnected martial art anyway, what with all the elemental flavored charms doing vastly different things. I felt like it was meant to be so, as every practitioner was supposed to act and fight differently.

>>48044570
>Frequently updated Character Sheet with Formulas and Autofill
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pfjmZKzcUqAX9mB58IAEUIFkZr8rq4CvdRRM4kzwwgU/edit?usp=sharing

I'm using this sheet and just noticed the boxes for "WA" and "DA" in the Misc Pools column, and I'm left wondering what they're for. Can anyone shine a light on this mystery?

Is there a limit to how big gods (or elementals)can be?

>>48073672
Probably can't be bigger than the God of Big Things, and he's probably limited to the size of Creation.

>>48073681
But could lesser gods/elementals be HUGE?

>>48070198
Eight charms longer than it has any right to be.

>>48073772
Can't please everyone, and the style wouldnt be remotely the same as it was if I cut it down.

>>48074012
It's not about pleasing everyone. There are plenty of martial arts for you to look at for comparison.

>>48074037
The style simply wouldnt be like the original concept if I cut it down more than maybe one charm.

>>48074037
Also do keep in mind, stylists are only supposed to be able to learn one of the 4 capstones. They are locked off from 6 of the 8 final charms by default. Unless of course you allow solars to learn all the moves as the book says could be a thing in the scroll of the monk.

>>48073671
This

>>48074037
>There are plenty of martial arts for you to look at for comparison.
There is nothing particularly wrong with a martial art being different from the norm, as long as the Charms are, both individually and taken together, useful but not overpowered.

How much would you have to change to get rid of excellencies? They feel like they have a really distorting effect on what "competent" looks like, and make mortals kind of irrelevant in any straight-up conflict, outside of being part of Battle Groups.

>>48073671
>>48074095
Withering Attack and Decisive Attack?

>>48074376
Basically everything.

>>48074401
That would make a lot of sense.

Tanks Anon, I couldn't focus on tomorrow's One Shot writing because my mind kept going back to it.

>>48074376

Excellencies are what make Exalts so scary in the first place. If you took them away, Octavian could eat Dawns for breakfast without even trying.

"Excellencies let Exalts smash through opposition if they really want to" is intended. Excellencies are honestly the most powerful Charm, but they're also the least efficient.

5 mortals (not a battle group) vs. an Exalt who's relying too heavily on their Excellency? I'd put my bet on the mortals, just because the Exalt's going to run out of gas.

>>48073772
>Eight charms longer than it has to be

you're only supposed to learn some(iirc 4?) of the 3rd to last row, which limits you to only one color of the 2nd to last row and its followup. (there is a 5th combination still undefined which the player has the option of discovering)

so that drops 7 for you.

>>48074376
I have similar feelings on Excellencies. I changed it by changing the frequency of Excellencies.

In addition to the mote cost of Excellencies, all usage of Excellency, regardless of mote pool used, pings your anima up one step (unless you are a Night Caste, you can dampen this effect once per scene).

This means it mostly affects Solars or Exalts trying to remain perfectly hidden, and creates incentives to use other charms or methods rather than brute-force dice power. There are a lot of holes with it, but they get addressed on a case-by-case basis at the table, as god intended.

>>48044634
I'm not sure if this is accurate, but my take on the Neverborn is that the Underworld didn't exist before they did, tied to Creation but unable to depart it. The Shadowlands are the way that Creation and the Underworld are tied together. Purifying every Shadowland in Creation would destroy the Underworld and everything/everyone in it.

It'd be a task that is simple in concept, nigh-impossible in practice, and morally justifiable only from an extremely simple and over-generally applied code of ethics. In short, it fits perfectly with the Solar Exalted.

Eliminating anything that comes out of the Shadowlands, on the other hand, is more moderate but doesn't leave room for any actual progress in the setting and doesn't address the root cause of the problem. Terrestrials.

>>48074859

holy shit! youre fucking stupid!

>>48075015
thumbsup.gif

>>48074376
Changeling: The Furfaggotry has excellencies accessible to everyone. Nobody beats an eyelash.

>>48074376
Excellencies are so fundamental to the setting and mechanics that you would have to rebuild everything from the ground up just to be sure to catch all the consequences.
Excellencies are what make exalts better than mortals, what makes solars better than dragonblooded, what makes a solar who has an ability favoured better at it than a solar that didn't.
Excellencies provide basic and high level competency in a skill, at the cost of effort. Spend valuable essence resources to make this one action really unlikely to fail, and then there're still ways for it to be countered or fail anyway. It gives players the option to choose what they think is an important actual, where to put in their maximum effort to try to ensure success. Sure they can develop charms to consistently pull of a trick that might be purely supernatural and not achievable by mortal means, but each charm is a huge investment and a specific niche they're building on. They need the excellencies to fall back on and just dump their motepool to eek out the best chances.
You can lower different exalt's dice cap, you can lower the threshold before they flare (and adjust that to fit the night caste anima), you even make excellencies more expensive.
But taking them out entirely or skewing it too much toward anima flaring adversely affects entire splats of exalts in incongruent ways.

For what, why do you need excellencies to be weaker? They're what makes exalts beyond human, more than charms, more than flashy glows, more than artifacts. Being able to pull off 5 successes on a row if you dump your mote pool on it, doesn't change the basic competency levels of everyone else, it just shows that these demigods can push through to achieve greatness. If you think mortals are too weak, then either you don't understand how that's an important part of the setting and tone, or you don't know how to beef up your mortals with clever tactics, stacked odds and circumstances. (Without just giving them 13 parry.)

>>48075345
>what makes solars better than dragonblooded

DB Excellency is actually better than the Solar one as you get up in essence.

>>48075345
>Giving mortals 13 parry.

LOL. What kind of moron would do that?

>>48075345
>an important actual
*action
>you even make
*you can
>5 successes on a row
*roll

>>48075345
>Excellencies are what make exalts better than mortals, what makes solars better than dragonblooded, what makes a solar who has an ability favoured better at it than a solar that didn't.
None of these things are true.

Solars are better than mortals even without excellencies because they have tons of Charms which provide a variety of mechanical benefits. They're better than Dragon-Blooded because they have larger mote pools, their Charms are better, and their Charms are less expensive. A Solar's favored abilities aren't better because of excellencies, they're better because they have cheaper access to Charms and ability dots.

>If you think mortals are too weak, then either you don't understand how that's an important part of the setting and tone, or you don't know how to beef up your mortals with clever tactics, stacked odds and circumstances.
I don't think mortals are too weak, I think that the rules as written render them irrelevant as anything other than the stakes for Exalts, demons, gods, etc, to fight over. They can only be meaningful actors if they have no Exalted opposition, and thus can't be meaningful antagonists. I don't like this, not because I don't want Exalts to be badasses who can beat up enemy troops, but because it has the practical effect of vastly shrinking the setting, making all the important characters into some variety of supernatural.

The game trains players to think of mortals with absolute disdain. If an Exalted game was set in the French Revolution, they'd treat Napoleon Bonaparte with disdain, and they'd be right to, since he's not an Exalt and thus can at best hope to roll 11 dice against their 21. Of course, Napoleon would probably be a Solar, but that's just going back to the other problem - everybody important has to be an Exalt.

>>48074630

Bieber is a first age Zenith i fucking know it

>>48075513

>i want to play the game without playing the game

>>48075513
Exalted is basically Great Man History/Ubermensch while trying to shoehorn in modern ideas about historical exploration and academic methodology (commerce of ancient societies, different ethical mores and values, some of which strangely native to the 21st century). That's why it will always have that dissonant tone, imo, with regards to "the common man". The world is not fair, nor striving to be fair, no matter how much the game itself targets a particular audience who wants those things to be true. In a way, it's a hilarious irony that among the biggest fans of Exalted are infact, egalitarian flag-wavers.

Though, look, I get why it bothers you. I think Excellencies are not great design, but it's a serviceable (if ugly) representation of what the game is going for. Tinker at your own risk, but instead of removal, mitigation might be the best choice without hitting the dreaded "great now I gotta change the whole game" point in design theory. A simple way to do it might just be to give Exalts free dice, but way less than an Excellency, on any skill roll that is Caste/Favored. Like 3-5 dice or something. Think of it like the people who sub out Magical Items for Flat Bonuses in certain editions of DnD because they hate the Xmas Tree effect.

>>48075721
>A simple way to do it might just be to give Exalts free dice, but way less than an Excellency, on any skill roll that is Caste/Favored. Like 3-5 dice or something.
>excellencies are awful!
>so I'm going to revive Infinite (Ability) Mastery, the literal worst fucking thing about Excellencies!

>>48075721
>In a way, it's a hilarious irony that among the biggest fans of Exalted are infact, egalitarian flag-wavers.
I don't really see any great irony there. What people want from real world and what they wan form their games are different things, and even these "egalitarian flag-wavers" don't necessrily try to shoehorn their personal ideologies into the game. Not in the sense of having their character share that ideology, anyways.

>>48075744
Dude can I get a consult because you are so smart I think I need to pay you for the privilege of keeping this conversation going.

>>48075757
I didn't intend it to come off as an insult (I'm an egalitarian flag waver myself), more of an observation of how it tends to inflect conversations about Exalted and that is humorous. People tend to forget they are playing uplifted special snowflakes by the very design and intent of the game itself, but often are the first to complain about that fact because it has a negative impact on their sensibilities. That's funny. That is good old fashioned funny.

>>48075622

I don't understand how someone got that from his post. Do you think that by having mortals act as a meanful antagonist what so ever that you lessen Exalted as a whole?

I mean what, do you hate perfect of paragon? Although to be fair he cheated.

If you remove Excellencies, we'll go back to the 1e days where people gained X die for some very specific task.

We'll see that as nearly 10 billion charms.

Excellencies just cut out the garbage and made baseline competence.

>>48075513
In all the games I've played mortals have indeed posed challenges to exalts. I mean sure, on an individual 1v1 basis mortals aren't much of a threat that's how the game is set up, but that doesn't mean you can just ignore them.
In the game im in right now, a somewhat large city is net to a demanse that they consider a holy place. The pc's want to make it into their manse. So what do they do? Just murder everyone and take it? Well for one that faces the issue of turning them into genocidal maniacs and then there's also 5000+ of them so its not like thats going to be some cakewalk. They could in theory find something else of value to give them and trade for it but that would also take a significant amount of work. There are ways around this, these are all options, but none of them are things they can do with no effort.

>>48075372
It is not.

>>48075513
>I think that the rules as written render them irrelevant as anything other than the stakes for Exalts, demons, gods, etc, to fight over.
That's wrong though. Mortals can never beat Exalts in a straight-up fight, that's intended. You're playing a character that can beat up gods, how the fuck even -could- a mortal stand up to you? But that doesn't mean mortals are irrelevant, nor does it mean they can't be antagonists.

Mortals have positions. They have influence, they have power. Look at the Guild, the majority of their infrastructure and leaders are mortal. Could a solar waltz into a kingdom and slap a mortal king around until he gets what he wants? Maybe. But there's going to be consequences, people are going to talk, someone's going to be pissed and someone's going to rat him out to the nearest Realm satrapy, or else inform someone else who can do something. If the exalt doesn't want to deal with that trouble, he'll have to sit down and deal with said King respectfully, and if he doesn't shit -will- come back to bite him somehow.

As for antagonists, a mortal can never beat an exalt in a real fight. That's just a fact. But look at the villain in the Marvel Civil War movie. He was just a normal dude, no way he could beat Iron Man, Captain America, or even the chumpiest of heroes in Marvel. Yet he managed to play them against each other, nearly got the Captain and Iron Man to kill each other, and indirectly crippled Rhody. He doesn't have a single super power, he never fought them because he knew he couldn't win. So he used his head and pit them against each other, and damn near succeeded in getting them to kill each other, and even if they didn't he still drove a huge wedge between them. That's how you make mortal antagonists. You get them to use their head and pit exalts against other supernatural foes, maybe even each other, all while they're miles away where it's safe.

>>48076947

Yea, but that's a cowards way. I want my hotblooded Kamina-esqe freedom fighter to be able to go with them head to head.

To make that possible I upped his defense a bit, seemed to work out pretty well.

>>48049929
>>48050069
just going to attempt and redirect some attention to this here question.

>>48077018
>a bit
The reason we flipped out at 13 parry mortal was because that's a fucking significant increase for even an exalted let alone a passionate mortal.
Hell, if you want a charismatic determined mortal leader, give him loyal followers, give him 10 willpower and make him spend it out the ass, give him 2 point stunts, make him face something that isn't a curbstomp but still a challenge.

>>48077298
I'd assume they refer to themselves as "I". No idea how they'd refer to other Tya, except by their name.

They probably refer to one another as "maties."

>>48073681
>God of Big Things
I take he's a big guy.

>>48074447
As creator, can confirm that's what they mean. I'll add a note over those boxes to help lessen the confusion.

>>48077498
Well really he's probably the biggest guy, barring some bizarre exalt-created sorcerous critter

>>48077507
I'd assume Ba-Ne only has one Siddie working for him .

>>48076868

You know to be honest. Murdering 5000 people isn't really a problem for an Exalt if they're mortals. The problem comes in if -another- supernatural creature or exalt who can make you accountable decides to join the fray. That's why most exalts generally don't do that. At least that was always what I thought.

>>48077498
3+1 letter after t

>>48077953
Well im sure a dawn COULD take on five size five battle groups, its a far cry from easy. So mortals still do pose a challenge that must be overcome. Also yeah alot of problems go away when you're willing to murder as many people as you need to to get what you want.

>>48078624

The same battle groups buffed by commanders however become far more problematic.

>>48080148
Especially if the commander has a bodyguard or two defending him. Defend Other is a pretty useful action, even when used by mortals.

>>48080323

I realized this recently: Defend Other penalizes decisive damage EVEN IF the attacker gets through both Defense values.

Since exigents can kind of handle homebrew advice for just about anything do you think we'll get a dedicated god or demon book this time around?

>>48082301

Probably. Designing a spirit is actually very different from designing an Exalt, because an Exalt's powerset has to be more or less fun to play at any investment level, while a spirit is just going to be the Charms that they have, no progression involved.

Plus, there's lots of non-Charm things to discuss about spirits.

I wouldn't expect a "generic" spirit Charm list like RoGD had, though.

>>48072131
Re-asking this

I need help coming up with some odds and ends an imperial legion might leave behind after a defeat.

I know the obvious stuff- wagons, grain, tents and bedrolls. I need ideas for more personalized items or random bits a higher level officer might leave behind

>>48082401
invincible fury is mostly relevant for when you're fighting multiple people at once and want to hurt them all in one go. The only advice i can give is to have big join battle boosters and to have other generically good melee charms to build int because you need quite a bit to get good mileage out of that

>>48082438
Letters and pictures of loves ones. Heirlooms, mementos, small figures, jewellery, mirrors, combs etc. Battle plans, maps, lists, secrets. Troop salary and rations, luxury items for officers like alcohol. Copies of thousand correct actions of the upright soldier and the pocketbook immaculate texts. Charms and superstitious idols to ward off all types of anathema. Keys to the warstrider if that's your thing.

>>48082438
I'd imagine men as well trained as the imperial legions are would actually leave quiet little behind.

>>48082641
unless it was an *extremely* disorganized retreat and your characters are right on their heels I'd think the officers would destroy what battleplans and secrets they couldn't pack up

>>48082638
I have Awakening Eye for JB, and a decent base pool. I have a few Melee Charms, but this character has, like, six Awareness Charms as well so I'm not as rounded out in Melee as I ought to be

Where are the Kita tribes people from?
I can't seem to find them on the E3 map.

>>48075513
>The game trains players to think of mortals with absolute disdain. If an Exalted game was set in the French Revolution, they'd treat Napoleon Bonaparte with disdain, and they'd be right to, since he's not an Exalt and thus can at best hope to roll 11 dice against their 21. Of course, Napoleon would probably be a Solar, but that's just going back to the other problem - everybody important has to be an Exalt.

pretty sure its intentional. that was how solars worked

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>>48077018
>A bit
>13 Parry
Why have you not drunk a bottle of bleach yet? Cause you should.

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>>48083597

>>48083798
Not the guy you replied to, and it's your game, if your players liked it, more power to you. Though as I recall they were somewhat astonished this guy was a mortal as they rightly should have been. Because 13 PDV is absolutely silly to have as a resting number. Even a min-maxed solar with a 1 point stunt and spending a full excellency just barely manages to boast that rating. I reserve something like that for my 3rd circle demons. The combat based ones at that, and that's still high. At 10 dex 10 melee + specialty you're sitting at 12 with a medium weapon. I just hope your players were legitimately happy with your choice, and not just trapped with 'the only option' scenario.

>>48082908
A retreat isn't the only kind of defeat, I was leaving it open in case you found a camp belonging to dead people.

>>48077018
>I want my hotblooded Kamina-esqe freedom fighter to be able to go with them head to head.
Kamina is literally the equivalent of a Solar in his setting.

>>48084266
No that's Simon.
Kamina had almost no spiral power at all. He was best cheerleader ever and that's how he rolled.
He'd totally be a mortal human with max dots in presence and perform

>>48084507
The best cheerleader ever is a Zenith, other settings don't have solars, but just like history, they do have legendarily great people.

>>48084785

Yes, and the whole point of Kamina's character as that he WASN'T one of those legendarily great people.

Spiral power in TTGL, Exaltation in Creation, god's blood in Greek myth, the mask in a capes setting, the thing that separates common man from hero, Kamina didn't have it.

>>48084848
He wasn't strong, but he had charisma and willpower, legendarily so. That's what covered up his lack of abilities, but that still qualifies for an exaltation, some people just focus on dawns only.

>>48084507
Just because he didn't have Simon's power levels at the end of the series, didn't mean he wouldn't be a solar.

Being a Solar isn't only being the absolute best all the time. That's being a Solar at essence 5.

Kamina would be an essence 1 Zenith with Presence Supernal and his entire combat suite being Excellent Strike and a few Resistance Charms. Or would you tell me Empowering Shout ISN'T exactly what his main focus is?

Just because he isn't the most powerful character in the cast doesn't mean he's not a solar.

There are more than just Dawns in exalted.

>>48084862

No, he didn't. He couldn't even make his own village like him, let alone any "legendary" charismatic.

Kamina had enough charisma to unlock Simon's potential and make friends with his crew. That's it.

>>48084848
Heroic Mortals are really interesting characters, but if you want to show how amazingly badass a person is because they don't have magic and did it all by sheer will, effort, training and natural talent. Then you have to actually back that up in the setting you're using, you can't make them x-blooded, you can't give them artifacts, you can't even give them sorcery if you want to stay true to mundane mortals. You can give them insanely rare high stats, and specialties, and stunting their ass off, and spending willpower. If you want to fudge it, you could let them take martial art charms and mess around with a limited pool just for those, without them being technically enlightened. A 13 parry artifact or arbitrarily cap-breaking stats just takes away from the awe of their achievements.

>tag descriptions listed after the actual weapon write ups
WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT THIS WAS OKAY

>>48085289

honestly as someone who really doesn't give a shit about most of Ex3's problems, this is actually the most fucked up and annoying thing in the book

>>48085289
>>48086587
It seemed like an almost-complete non-issue to me.

>>48086587
That is incredibly minor compared to all the other layout flaws.

>>48086587
>>48087632
>honestly as someone who really doesn't give a shit about most of Ex3's problems, this is actually the most fucked up and annoying thing in the book

>It seemed like an almost-complete non-issue to me.

Every EX3 discussion is this.

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Why did they get rid of autobot?

>>48090956

There is literally an Alchemical in the core book you absolute dicktwat. That's more mention in ANY COREBOOK OF ANY EDITION than Autochthon has ever gotten.

>>48090956
Because he didn't fit the aesthetics of the world the Solars were running so they kicked him out.

>>48090956
>tfw no morally ambiguous machine-god abducts myself, family, friends, and neighbors to dwell within his world-body for eternity

>>48090956
Autochthon still exists, he just isn't relevant to the Age of Sorrows.

>>48091079
The girl with the goggles on the "COMING SOO- EVENTUA- MAYBE AT SOME POINT" splash page?

>>48091600

Yes. As opposed to 0 mentions in text and 0 pieces of artwork, as was the case in 1e and 2e.

Sorry, ONE mention, in all the 2e core book. One mention of his name, in any context, and it was a quick blurb about how he gave the Exalts weapons. That's it.

>>48084969

>Heroic Mortals are really interesting characters

I feel bad for mortals so much. Everytime I see that I think of how sorcery makes them non mortal and I believe even in 2e if they were to learn martial arts charms they lost the mortal tag as well.

And it's also annoying that anyone who counts as a badass in other settings would have to be imported as an exalted or as an x-blood to show their uniqueness.

>>48091677
>Everytime I see that I think of how sorcery makes them non mortal and I believe even in 2e if they were to learn martial arts charms they lost the mortal tag as well.
Why would that make you feel sorry for mortals?

>nd it's also annoying that anyone who counts as a badass in other settings would have to be imported as an exalted or as an x-blood to show their uniqueness.
No, there is room for mortal badasses. The most badass dudes are Exalted, though. What is so annoying about that?

Speaking of badass people without powers, is Batman a Night or Twilight caste?

>>48092268
Night, Anima is not a stealthy man's friend.

With Brawl, Stealth, Athletics, Bureaucracy, Ride/Sail (whichever is Drive) and Investigation Favored/Caste

>>48092314
But he's also the world's greatest detective, has craft for gadgets and vehicles, and lore out the ass to supplement his supernal investigation. He'd have a bit of brawl, but I see it as more Ebon Shadow or a custom MA, with a dash of thrown. Plus yeah, all the athletics, stealth, awareness etc he'd need. Some socialise and integrity too, because he's a mary sue and needs all of these.

>>48092410
>But he's also the world's greatest detective,

Good thing Nights can Supernal Investigation.

>>48092268
Batman's a Dawn Caste sometimes, when his stories are about him being a peerless master of martial arts. Sometimes he's the world's greatest detective and also builds his own gadgets, making him Twilight. Night Caste kind of explains itself. You could maybe argue Zenith during Batman Inc., but Eclipse I'd have trouble justifying.

James Bond you can easily argue any Caste, that's just how things work for really long running characters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdRhQ669s2c
What Caste is Johnny Bravo?

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>>48092842
Having swiped this from the WoD thread, you know damn well who JB is

>>48092851
>JB as big ol' UCS himself.
That can't be right, simply because Mister Suntacular got the girl, Johnny on the other hand is about a subtle as a brick in the nuts and is most likely a virgin.

>>48091677
>sorcery makes them non mortal
Incorrect. An essence pool is what makes you non-mortal in 3e; a sorcerer only becomes non-mortal if they use a Working to grant themselves one or whatever.

>I believe even in 2e if they were to learn martial arts charms they lost the mortal tag as well.
2e went both ways about that. In some books, they clearly defined mortals as 'people without essence pools.' In others, they had descriptions of 'enlightened mortals' or 'mortals with enlightened essence' every other page. Unlike in 3e, it was super inconsistent.

>anyone who counts as a badass in other settings would have to be imported as an exalted or as an x-blood
100% false. Mortals are, on the higher end, capable of doing borderline superhuman feats on the regular. For example:
>Near-impossible feats, even by heroic standards, are appropriate for difficulty 5. Examples might include reading a letter in pitch blackness by feeling the texture of ink on the paper, leaping over the rail of a sorcerer’s flying chariot to land safely in a hay cart hundreds of feet below, or running for three consecutive days and nights without succumbing to exhaustion.

A mortal with Attribute 5, Ability 5, Specialty 1, and a Rating 1 Stunt is rolling 13 dice on an action. If they also spend willpower, you're looking at an average of 7.5 successes. Sure, that makes them more or less the theoretical perfect ideal of mortal excellence within their field, but that's still the sort of shit that mortals can just do with successes alone.

Anyone who does borderline-superhuman feats, rather than 100% superhuman ones, can be represented easily as a mortal rather than having to resort to making them an exalt.

>>48093007
Sorcerers are not mortal as far as the mechanics are concerned in 3e actualy

>>48092268
>Speaking of badass people without powers, is Batman a Night or Twilight caste?
Dawn or Night, depending on which aspect of him you want to focus on. Martial arts and intimidation? Dawn. Stealth and acrobatics? Night.

A case could be made for Twilight, but I find 'Batman the gadgeteer' to be boring and obnoxious, so I'd ignore it.

>>48093022
>Sorcerers are not mortal as far as the mechanics are concerned in 3e actualy
[Citation Needed]

>>48093022
>Sorcerers are not mortal as far as the mechanics are concerned in 3e actualy
>Mortal sorcerers initiate into the Terrestrial Circle by mastering a shaping ritual, which they may purchase as a five-dot Merit that requires Occult 3. The first spell they learn becomes their control spell. Most mortal sorcerers only ever attain one ritual, but at the Storyteller’s discretion, they might be able to gain more from the same sorcerous archetype, or even different ones.
100% false. They're even described as 'mortal sorcerers' right in the book. I think you might be thinking of something stupid Morke/Holden said literally years before the book was released, rather than something actually included in 3e.

>>48093079
>They're even described as 'mortal sorcerers' right in the book.
I wouldn't read too much into that, coming from the gameline that said "enlightened mortals" alongside "mortals are people who cannot into essence"...

>>48093124
>coming from the gameline that said "enlightened mortals" alongside "mortals are people who cannot into essence"
That was 2e. This is 3e. Mortals are strictly defined in 3e as 'people who don't have essence pools.'

Sorcerers don't have essence pools, and mortal sorcerers are explicitly described as still being mortal.

You are flatly incorrect about sorcerers no longer being mortal. I know where you got the idea - I remember the devs running their mouths about sorcerers not being mortal anymore back in the playtest days.

But that didn't make it into 3e. Mortals and sorcerers being incompatible categories is not a thing.

>>48093022
>>48093158
>Sorcerers are not mortal
>Mortals are strictly defined in 3e as 'people who don't have essence pools.'
Actually, it's not even that defined. What a mortal is and isn't is literally never mentioned in 3e. I just searched through every mention of the word 'mortal' and couldn't find fuckall.

Based on what I did read, though, it appears that sorcerers can definitely still be mortal.

And while there are no mortals with essence pools in the core book - the closest to that would be Mist, and he's in the Strange Folk section - there's also nothing anywhere that says that mortals can't have essence pools. Indeed, Mist is in the same section as a seemingly-mortal snake beastfolk character, suggesting to me these categories aren't so hard and fast.

This can be looked at in one of two ways, I think. Either they forgot to include a definition of mortality, in which case you have to infer it from the text, and the text quite clearly implies mortals can be sorcerers. Or, alternatively, the devs left it intentionally vague - not wanting to explicitly spell out the threshold at which a mortal crosses over into not-a-mortal - in order to add to the setting's mystique and let GMs decide that for themselves.

Either way, I'd call someone who says that 'mortal sorcerers' are no longer mortal is full of shit.

>>48093007

You know they had those difficulty back in 2e as well. Expect there were degrees of successes as oppose to 3e lack of it. Which makes me wonder does that mean that it's easier to do crazy things in 3e or what?

>>48093351
>does that mean that it's easier to do crazy things in 3e
Yeah, pretty much.

ExalTwitch is on.

>>48095651
what know?

>>48092268
batman doesn't port well because hes good at so many things. He's this master martial artist and also a genious inventor and detective and also this super sneaky ninja and also a playboy who runs a super successful company. Exalts can usually only do one or two of those.

>>48096879
A 3rd edition campaign stream, done by actors and writers, they're actually pretty good. You can try it out here if you want.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiS0McnLDI6Q0PmHK9Z7W61UCjzx9HN2r

What shape to Hobgoblins take? Could they be, well, goblins? Rapegoblins?

>>48097422

Generally they match the theme of their master, fiery Raksha have little coal-imps, more normal ones have deformed humans or subjugated "monsters", etc.; regular-ass pointy-ears-long-nose green goblins are an option as a result, yes.

>>48097422

Of course there could be rapegoblins. If a Fair Folk wants to feel the emotion of terror and pain from rape then of course he could do it himself. Or he could get a hundred mortals and a hundred rape goblins and feel it 100 times at the same time.

>>48097080
"actors" "writers"

So what are some great ways to cause dissonance within a party?

For me I often see it as when one guy wants to do stuff focused in Creation, but another guy in the group wants fuckall to do in Creation and wants to adventure in Malfeas, Shadowlands, Malfeas, Wyld, and Malfeas.

Anyone have any others?

Speaking of rape goblins and rape in general I have a question. If one were to make a classic doujin/hentai charm revolving around mindbreak and having them think of nothing but cock would that be presence, performance, or resistance. Maybe a multi-charm package where you wear down all other intimacies that are not cock and another charm where you boost cock into an unbreakable magically reinforced intimacy?

>>48098598
Why do you want to cause dissonance in the party?

>>48098884

I'm not. I'm knowing reasons so I can avoid them.

>>48098740
Friend, friend please. Why do this?

>>48098598
Large scale vs small scale. Also known as playing civilization vs playing dragonball.

Stationary vs traveling.

Goody-two-shoes vs I am so high on unlimited power right now, guise. Also known as "slavery is bad" vs "well, they didn't build the pyramids without slaves".

>>48099080

Magical Realm game. Why not?

>>48098740
I'd say resistance. Also, the other intimacies thing should be temporal, and not a real intimacy of cock, but rather, a passion.

>artifact write up
>then hearthstones
>then evocations and magical materials
This triggers my autism

>>48099313

I don't see why. Unlike weapons and their tags, you don't need to understand what a hearthstones, magical material is (since they no longer give bonuses), or have lists of sample evocations, in order to understand artifact write-ups.

tfw bureaucracy is the best supernal.

>>48099102
>"well, they didn't build the pyramids without slaves".

They did though.

>>48099368
I just find it weird that they hype evocations and then when they finally get to artifacts they break for hearthstones before getting to them

>>48099413

Ah, yeah, fair enough - although some hearthstones give evocations too.

>>48099209

Well I like them temporarily being suppressed until eventually you get to the point where they have to make a decision point to either go back to the person they were or become a full time cock sleeve.

>>48099570
If you ever draft a complete thing, could you please post it here? I'd be very glad if you'd let me include it in my game.

>>48099589

I am not very good at charm design. I can handle it well enough for personal use but I dare not let the general public suffer through it.

>>48099640
>>48099640
I am not the general public, my fellow magical realmer.

>>48099753

Eh what the hell I will give it a shot. This is the male version as we are talking about mindbreaking via cock but mechanically a woman could do this to somebody as well and just replace cock with pussy or something. Remember I was just going to keep this shitshow to myself (beyond, well trolling /exg/ with its premise).

Embrace of Ecstasy
Cost:10m, 1wp; Mins: Performance 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple
Keywords: Psyche, Stackable
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Celestial Bliss Trick

The Solar so competent at the art of lovemaking overwhelms the senses of their partner. Going beyond the limits humans would normally be able to experience the Solar invades the soul of their partner forcing a change. The act of lovemaking creates a unbreakable magical intimacy to cock and will overwrite any intimacies of equal level or below as being one lower (minors are suppressed, majors become minors, and defining become majors).

Each use of this charm increases the rating by one. Going from creating a minor to a minor becoming a major and major to defining. The intimacy drops by one every month if the charm is not used again. The lover is aware of this change as it increases but cannot do anything about it besides refusing sex by spending a willpower. The attraction however remains.

If used again at defining the the lover reaches a decision point. The lover rolls their permanent willpower at a difficulty of one. The difficulty increases by one for each month the lover spent having a defining intimacy to cock. If the lover succeeds at the roll the lover immediately loses the intimacy and cannot be the target of this charm again. If the lover fails they lose all other intimacies permanently and can have only one defining intimacy to cock and will only eat, sleep, have sex, search for sex, or worship a cock (if they worship a specific cock such as the Solar's if the Solar gathered multiple lovers with this charm this counts as a cult).

I hope you liked it.

>>48099413
This book is in desperate need of an editor.

>>48100489
An editor wouldn't help layout problems I don't think. Though there is still a need. There are still typos in the ending fiction for instance.

>>48101070

There's more than one type of editing.
Mechanical editing is the one dealing with punctuation, typos, and the like - substantive editing potentially involves restructuring the entire document to improve its understandability.

>>48100289

Dropping intimacy values fucks you at decision points and not in a good way. You shouldn't make it impossible for someone to do something, even with a charm.

Give me until tomorrow, I'll convert some of my old Lover charms.

>>48101126

read >>48099640

>>48101143

Yea, I meant doing several more.

>>48101126

Also that kind of is the point of mindbreak. At lower levels of this charm you can still use major or defining intimacies to block going for the cock. But once it reaches defining the cock is all powerful just like in my doujins.

http://exhentai.org/s/f967687b88/103860-23

>>48101281

I understand that, but there are differences in designing a charm exactly towards its source fluff vs trying to make it fit into a game. Doing something like that in one shot kneecaps like hell, and I feel there are better ways to go about it.

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>>48100289
Perfect

>>48101315

You get out early before it gets used on you too many times? I mean unless you do a grapple and restrain them into rape they have to actually sleep with you. If you feel yourself being overwhelmed by the cock you get out using a higher intimacy. Plus against Exalted they could have things like integrity charms. Righteous Lion Defense just shit kicks this charm as you can't get rid of the intimacy and so no matter what you can run with it. I expect other Exalts to have similar charms where you have to work around it before you can use this charm.

>>48098740
>If one were to make a classic doujin/hentai charm revolving around mindbreak and having them think of nothing but cock would that be presence, performance, or resistance.
>Celestial Bliss Trick
>Cost: 3m, 1wp; Mins: Performance 4, Essence 1
>Type: Simple
>Keywords: Mute
>Duration: Instant
>Prerequisite Charms: Thousand Courtesan Ways
>The Exalt performs the body-mudra of sighs and whispers upon a lover, unleashing a torrent of unimaginable ecstasy. This intense lovemaking lasts at least three minutes, inducing a world-shaking climax in her partner. In the afterglow, the Exalt becomes the object of a temporary Defining Tie of lust that lasts for (Essence) weeks, and gains (Essence) automatic successes to social influence actions targeting her lover for the rest of the scene.
A Defining tie is one that you could be convinced to die in the name of.

tfw ur group will only play in the homebrew setting inspired by exalted + china but you just wanna play regular exalted

>>48103691

>exalted + china

Don't like Realm games?

>>48103691
my current campaign is basically playing in the Forgotten Realms, and Yu-Shan is New York City.

My players have fun apparently.

>>48104709

They should. For one its a better system.

>>48092410
>because he's a mary sue
I don't think that means what you think it means.

>>48103691
Wanna join my game? It's based in not!Kiev in the 10th century.

I'm kidding: I am way too stupid to ST a game for more than one or two players.

So I'm totally new to Exalted, I've read up on the setting from 1d4chan and such but I'm only just starting crunch learning. 3e is a very new edition, right? Is it good? Should I learn that one or an earlier one? I'm planning on bugging my group to start an Exalted game cause we love the setting and theme, but we have no exposure to it.

>>48105585
It's good. Not as good as it could've been, but better than both previous editions.

>>48105585
3eExalted is marginally better than 2e, but both of them suffer from bloat in the CHARMS CHARMS CHARMS CHARMS department.

It's sort of like this: Imagine you're a Psion in D&D3, only instead of advancing by level, you get given a never-ending stream of feats, most of which you'll be spending on Expanded Knowledge to gain new active powers that tap into a shared resource pool. Some of your feats can instead go to Toughness/Dodge-equivalents that give you passive permanent buffs instead. Also, each feat is three times as long as a D&D feat, and you'll easily accumulate over a hundred of them.

>>48106078
Since we're on this topic, lemme say that Exalted in many ways is a reminder of "Oh, that's why we have this stupid D&D mechanic", because Exalted tries to get away from D&D-isms on several points and doesn't necessarily end up the better for it.

Hit points, for instance. Caricatured as "meat points" et al. when characters have hundreds of them and casually jump down cliffs while eating explosions before healing to full in an instant, Exalted tries to fix it so that your celestially empowered, god-slaying superhuman hero has seven (7) hit points and they actually take time to recover when injured. For some resource investment, he can choose between new powers like "Wring swords out of hematite with his bare hands in minutes" or "Gain three (3) hit points". Hi, Toughness!

But this soon runs into the issue that when you're running 7HP characters in a system that has large dicepools, a range of damage-differentiated weapons, high character customization, and generally a lot of variability all around, you can rapidly end up with not much space between "whiff whiff tink whiff whiff whiff" and "oops, splat", so both 2e and 3e have to give you a second Functional Hitpoints resource (motes/initiative) which you have a lot more of, and which can be recovered much faster, and which usually have to be chipped away before someone can damage your Actual Hitpoints.

And so I was enlightened and realized that meat points weren't actually all that bad.

Ditto the Last Hit Point effect compared to wound penalties; because practically the moment you have wound penalties, you have some dev writing an iron will wound penalty negator, some other dev writing a bloodlust effect that turns your wound penalty into a circumstantial wound bonus, and a third dev writing a masochism effect that turns your wound penalty into a different circumstantial bonus, and suddenly you have a Fantasy Emo character build made of these that starts each day by cutting itself for a ton of bonuses.

>>48106247
I thought the whole "Initiative as a combo-meter" was a super cool idea when I read it. Does it not play well? Seems like a great way to mimic anime style fights where tons of attacks are thrown that don't actually do any damage, then a single hit that threatens to absolutely end the fight.

>>48106341
Oh, it does! It makes going for Actual Damage on another character a risky proposition, because doing Actual Damage puts you at risk of being crashed after, which is an incredibly dangerous place to be. It does exactly what you mentioned; letting there be plenty of meaningful blows landed or combat options undertaken which aren't purely stabbing a dude or smashing is face in, and it makes combat escalate pretty well as time goes on.

The trouble is, Exalted has always been a game with variable investment. Exalted doesn't give a fuck about ensuring you're prepared for every situation. Exalted doesn't give a fuck about ensuring you're ready for combat. If you spend all 15 of your starting charms on being a brilliant Bureaucrat and none of your skills are combat based, Exalted will shrug and go "well what did you expect?" when a single mortal manages to kill you, let alone how bad it'll be if an actual Combat Exalt doesn't like you.

So, even if everybody is investing in combat, the differing degrees to which they're investing in combat makes everyone a much bigger or smaller threat. The Dawn, for example, will almost always be able to pulp anyone in his party in a handful of turns tops, if he really wanted to, and the threats you have to construct to challenge The Dawn personally are threats that will make the rest of the party sweat right through their golden codpieces.

In addition, certain builds are Alpha Strikes or OHKO type builds, and I'll explain their problems in the next post

>>48106341
The combo-meter is a cool idea, and plays well in narrow situations, it's just that it's *also* functioning as hit points, and non-combo-charm-fuel-resource, and general "stuff" that does not play so well once the situation gets complicated and involves several gains and drains to the stat.

The most ludicrous example is perhaps some poisons - they deal initiative damage until you run out of initiative, and then they start dealing hit point damage. I mean, row row fighting spirit and all that, sure but the mechanical abstraction starts to look *really fucking wonky* when your ability to not get injured by poison is sometimes dependent on your ability to successfully-but-not-too-successfully punch some guy in the face (you need to punch him for Initiative damage to gain initiative yourself as a buffer against poison, not punch him for Actual Damage).

>>48106457
That mirrors anime fights pretty well though imo.

The poison and the battlegroup mechanics work the same way: The Main Character cleaves through hordes of enemies who aren't nearly as threatening as 20 whatevers should be if they were actually run as independent mooks due to conservation of ninjitsu. And basically every fight that involves a Main Character fighting a horde of faceless enemies will have them cleaving through them like butter, not taking appreciable scratch damage, but sometimes it'll be a death scene and suddenly with no warning the character goes from untouched to being peppered with 50 arrows at once as he gets savaged by the horde. Same with poison: in anime fight's it'll act as a 'ticking clock' to the fight that doesn't actually really affect the outcome all that much until AFTER the main character deals the final blow and then suddenly collapses, or if he's on the ropes face down in the crater he got punched into struggling to do his heroic stand up and fight deal.

>>48101070
An editor's job is normally not just to proofread the document and tell you where all the typos are. Ideally, a good editor helps remove clutter, arrange things in a good order, clarify language, murder your darlings, etc. Exalted 3e's "editor" was actually just a proofreader, and it really shows.

>>48106378

Every Ability Type for combat now plays very differently on a deeper level, given how they interact with Initiative vs. Decisive. This goes for MA too. Archery dominates at area control and restriction and steady, reliable damage throughout the entire fight. Melee is the defensive king, and an otherwise reliable workhorse. Brawl laughs at any single opponent by stacking penalties until their knockout blow couldn't be avoided with any amount of motes spent.

But then you have abilities like Thrown, or Single Point.

Thrown is an Alpha-Strike ability. Thrown is never as powerful as it is in the very first round of combat. Thrown lives or dies depending on how well its surprise attack at the very start works. A talented Thrown character either decides the outcome at the very beginning, or is at a very large handicap for the rest of the fight, compared to other straightforward abilities. For players and the GM, this can be...frustrating.

The Dawn pumps charm after charm into Thrown, Perception, and Stealth. The fight opens up. In the first round, he throws a hundred knives and takes the Primary Villain into his -3s, his bodyguards into the -4s, and all the mooks are dead. And that's if the Villain and his Bodyguards are DURABLE; Thrown+Stealth+Perception, or just Thrown+Perception are easily capable of shitting out 15+ health levels of damage on the first turn. Single Point Shining into the Void has a similar problem of very quickly being able to do a dozens and dozens of HL in one strike very, very quickly.

Balancing around all the different ways everyone fights and can be fought in Exalted is a nightmare for new GMs.

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With all the discussions about combat and bullshit going on, has anyone ever lined up the different combat abilities and compared them? The charms are wordy, which makes it hard to get an idea of the mechanics behind them for a straight up casual faggot comparison by myself.

How does Thrown shape up to Archery? How do Melee, Brawl, and the various Martial Arts stack up?

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>>48106543
>Ideally, a good editor helps remove clutter, arrange things in a good order, clarify language, murder your darlings, etc. Exalted 3e's "editor" was actually just a proofreader, and it really shows.

Like in the charms that reroll 10s? Nobody stopped to ask why you'd ever want to do that?

Exalted 3 smacks of Alpha Magic where every card had its own idiosyncratic wording, the devs would use the same word different ways on different cards, sometimes they made keywords up on the spot and had to explain them on the card, half the Charms are basically pic related, and a proper fix would involve mass retemplating.

>>48106665
Oh, yeah. They're p. straightforward in their role once you can parse through all the Grist.

Archery - Area Denial, Constant Damage. No real soak penetration, high accuracy, can ignore almost all penalties to hit on top of being able to boost accuracy. Has a gimmick mechanic with burning intimacies to strengthen individual blow, which makes your character stop possessing that intimacy for a while.

Brawl - Single Target Lockdown. Brawl builds up defense penalties and is amazing at avoiding the attacks of a single target. Has trouble handling multiple foes because its offense and defense bonuses/maluses vanish if it stops continuously attacking the same person. Has the strongest and cheapest soak penetration of non-MA ability in the game.

Melee - Defensive Orientated. Melee has incredibly good resting defense, cheap defense boosts, the most plentiful counterattacks, and the best accuracy-boosters of the melee abilities. It also has the most multi-attacks, which can let it do death of a thousand cuts style combat. Much better than Brawl at dealing with multiple foes at once, and has some solid niches with defending others and throwing wind-slashes and other ranged attacks as well.

Thrown - Alpha Strike, Gambits. Thrown does the most damage in the first round, relies on having very high initiative in the first round, but can recapture that first-round glory if it can go into stealth mid-combat. Has good tools for disarming opponents and keeping them disarmed. A "trickster" playstyle, with ricocheting weapons and misdirection baked into the core.


Could sum up Ride, Resistance, and Dodge if you like as well, but that'd be another post. Don't know all the MA well enough to give you good overviews.

>>48106738
That actually super helpful, thanks. Mostly my confusion comes from staring at MA and Melee and trying to figure out what the 4 dots of buy-in merit is actually getting me and whether it's worth it.

>>48106750
The merit is buying the ability to spend Solar EXP on the charms. Solar EXP, ie, your bonus EXP you get for roleplaying well, can't be used on Solar Charms (Which makes it...a very bad name. Solar EXP can't buy Solar Charms.)

MA are built as very powerful and expensive charms individually. Your bread and butter charm for Tiger Style is gonna cost 6 motes unlike Brawls Bread and Butter costing 2 motes and melees bread and butter costing 3. They'll often times be more efficient and strong mote for mote, with the penalty of lacking the flexibility of having a lot of charms/the flexibility of having a lot of charms of different mote costs.

So, the benefit of being able to spend Solar EXP on the MA charms is that you can then spend your normal EXP on other charms, which helps make MA very attractive for characters focusing on something else. Your Performance character is going to love Silver Voiced Nightingale for being thematic to music, only being about 10 charms long as a tree, and for not interfering with them purchasing more Performance charms. For a dedicated combat character who just wanted Martial Arts, the benefit is being able to spend your normal EXP on mundane defenses, like a Crane Stylist also buying up plenty of Resistance Charms, or a Righteous Devil Stylist buying up plenty of Dodge.

>>48106750
It is worth it most of the time. It's not like most Merits give you huge bonuses, they are there mostly for story reasons or if you want to seriously minmax.

>staring at MA and Melee
Two sword-using MAs are very different from Melee. Steel Devil is chaining your attacks and overwhleming foes with onslaught but gets shut down if you opponent has good defense. Single Point wants to Alpha Strike and has two initiative tracks but lacks in accuracy and defense.

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>>48106800
>>48106819
So, essentially, Martial Arts is best for characters who want to spend their regular XP on things that aren't combat, as you get more strength for your XP when it comes to MA charms?

I can see the attraction of supernaling it (some of the styles get to E3 alarmingly quickly), but only Dawns can do so. And they get access to every other combat ability, too, whereas an Eclipse picking up Black Claw has a lot of synergy with an ability they're likely to have a huge rating in.

>>48106819
As far as I can tell, there's nothing stopping you from using SDS and Single Point at the same time if you have two artifact katanas on hand.

>>48106973
>As far as I can tell, there's nothing stopping you from using SDS and Single Point at the same time if you have two artifact katanas on hand.

Needing to get Martial Arts (SDS):5 and Martial Arts (Single Point ):5 to do that is a bit of an issue.

>>48106973
>Martial Arts is best for characters who want to spend their regular XP on things that aren't combat
Yes. That's also why most martial arts strongly synergize with other Abilities. Ebon Shadow Style is for Stealth, Black Claw is for Presence, Nightingale is for Performance, Snake is for Dodge, and so forth.

The design direction of about half the martial arts is for someone with a non-combat (or less-combat) Supernal to have a fighting style that meshes with their actual main focus.

The design direction for the rest is to have a weird niche (White Reaper being crazy good at fighting battle groups, for example) or have a weird focus that doesn't quite fit a native charmset (Single Point, Steel Devil, Righteous Devil).

It's the Steel Devils, the Single Points, the Righteous Devils that make Supernaling MA make a lot of sense. Otherwise, MA is more designed so that, for example, the social character can have a fighting style that builds off of what he's already good at.

>>48106738
I'd love a sum-up of Dodge/Resistance/Ride. As I understand it, Resistance is underwhelming unless specced into HARD, and Ride is sleeper op.

>>48107565
I love the idea of playing a Supernal MA Dawn since I adore the wuxia aspect of Exalted, but I find it hard to justify, mechanically -- with MA as your supernal, you'd want to buy more than one style, which not only requires you to buy the ability for each individual martial art up to 5, but buy the charms themselves, and supplementary charms like dodge, resistance, presence, athletics, etc. if you want to get the full martial artist experience. You could focus hard in one style (such as Tiger), but then your combat ability caps out at ess 3.

>>48108119
It's a wise idea to ask your ST for houserules, where multiple MA Abilities is concerned, if you're in any way inclined to Supernal MA.

>>48108119
That's why the MA houserule I use, is you can use MA as written, without the merit. IE: Each is it's own ability.

But if you buy the merit(Still 4 dots, but no brawl requirement), you treat all MA, as one skill, and just buy charms individually, as normal. They're still not compatible unless you have a shared form weapon and such, but otherwise they are all one ability. That way you can still buy a single MA easily enough if you just want to dabble, but you're not taxed super hard if you want to focus on MA.

>>48108213
Anon, I, think that, you need, fewer commas.

>>48108080
Resistance is not a primary defense, is the issue. People who want Resistance to be = Dodge/Parry don't understand why that is a poopy bad thing, and a game balance nightmare. Resistance focus with a 5 Defense makes you damn near unkillable if played smart.

>>48109095
I think the issue is that secondary defences work better when you don't have to declare them before the attack is rolled.

>>48105585
>Is it good?
yes
> Should I learn that one or an earlier one?
probably not but it might be a good idea to give the setting books a quick read
> I'm planning on bugging my group to start an Exalted game cause we love the setting and theme, but we have no exposure to it.
Tell them they dont need to read the whole systems chapter, just combat, social influence, and anything they plan on their character doing. Also tell them they dont need to read all the charms.

>>48106341
Functionally it works the same as dnd meat points in my experience. Say two characters are fighting and both have 100 hp. Guy A is doing 10 hp with his attacks and guy B is doing 30. Those attacks aren't actually hampering either, but you can still clearly tell who's winning. Init does the exact same thing. Also general combat and charm design helps things be less linear. In dnd depending on what class you play if a guy is out damaging you then you might not really have any options. In exalted I have actually had cases where a guy was way below another guy in int and still turned things around.

>>48106078

>Also, each feat is three times as long as a D&D feat, and you'll easily accumulate over a hundred of them.

After three years of play maybe.

>>48108080
Sorry about that, was called away; but a quick summary of Dodge, Resistance, and Ride is;

Dodge is the primary defense for any character who doesn't have a high parry. Dodge is a gamble! Like Parry, it's all or nothing; either you don't take any damage, or you take the damage. Dodge charms are built around this dichotomy. Dodge gains plenty of bonuses and starts tossing out maluses as long as it can continue an unbroken chain of rounds where it doesn't get hit. Dodge will give you a lot of free mobility over short distances, escalates itself over time as your dodge rises the longer you go without getting hit, etc, and has one of the ONLY perfects in 3E thus far, meaning it has one of the rare Oh Shit buttons in the game. Even Resistances perfect soak only applies to a limited swathe of things.

Resistance is a secondary defense; you can go without Dodge if you have a strong parry, IE, if you're someone already heavily invested in Brawl or Melee. Instead of trying to avoid the damage entirely, you're trying to control how much of it you'll take. A Resistance character will lose a meager handful of initiative every turn, in contrast to a Dodge character who builds initiative every turn until they get crashed by a single blow. Resistance also has tools to avoid Real HL Damage in Ox-Bodies and charms that allow them to soak decisive damage with their armor.

Ride is the Real True Avoidance ability. Someone with a good ranged attack and Ride is the most infuriating fucker to ever exist; the reason is that Ride is never in the same range band as you. You can't catch up with a Ride character. He's a distant blot on the horizon who keeps shooting feathered death at you. If you try to rush him, his roll to counter your rush will be higher. If you get near him, his mount starts counterattacking you. You strike at the Solar. The steed gets hit instead, and it's so much tougher than the Solar. It's hard to catch him, and it's hard to hurt him. Ride is annoying.

So how the fuck do you build a recurring villain in 3rd edition? Demons and elementals make for disposable mooks but eventually he's going to need some way to GTFO of a fight that's going bad so he can regroup, and ideally his higher ranked underlings will have something similar so they can report back instead of dying like mooks as well.

Ride maybe?

>>48112454
>So how the fuck do you build a recurring villain in 3rd edition?
Someone who knows when to disengage and can do so.

>>48112454
Have him be a DB in a group of DBs and he always runs away once the other guys start getting killed.

>>48112454

Anyone with Ebon Shadow can fake their death with their wound penalty as a bonus. Other than that, it's generally just speed and stealth, maybe certain sorceries as well.

>>48112454

Once an enemy starts to Withdraw, it's actually impossible to catch him unless you have movement boosting magic, so I'd start there.

>>48112491
>>48112611
Know of good charmsets for boosting disengage dice pools? I can safely assume i'll be going against a dice pool of 10 with rare exceptions

>>48112558
As I have had other enemies fake their deaths in games before, my players started taking to decapitating any significant enemy, just to make sure they aren't only pretending to be dead.

>>48112776
Clearly, your next significant enemy should be a liminal.

>>48112558
Not a bad idea, but with my group, the party Zenith always uses their anima ability to cremate the corpse of any semi-significant enemy. The players do that to make sure there won't be any angry ghosts following them around.

If someone was faking being dead, the players would realize it immediately.

>>48112884
You can't do that if your enemy "died" in a collapsing building. Or volcano. Or every other situation when you can't find the body. It's a staple for recurring villains. A bit obvious one but whatver, cliches aren't always bad.

Other ways are planned escape routes, emergency artifacts with teleport-like effects, flying mounts, sudden changes in scenery (great rift opening and separating the fight), giving PCs other thing to take care of instead of just shanking the bad guy (classic "you can kill me OR rescue your daughter").

You guys realize you can just GM fiat to have someone escape, yeah? Sure you need a reason, but you don't need hard numbers for it, say the guy has a consumable magic item that teleports him away after a few seconds of fancy lights, or they chase him around a corner only to find a seamless brick wall (which appears completely normal to all attempts to analyze it, because it IS normal), or his friend picks him up while riding a giant bird and flies away...

Dear /tg/, please do a little theorycraft:

When buying 3 Essence 1 Charms for a simple basic social fu suite, is Celestial Bliss Trick the best bang for the buck?

>>48114477
Celestial Bliss Trick is the best bang, period.

"Basic", though? It's a) sex, b) says it applies to a lover. CBT is what you do to people you *already* have hit with some kind of social-fu. So I gotta say no.

>>48114477

Fuck no. CBT is a really niche trick, and it only barely makes up for itself. In the same time you spent trying to convince The Thorn-Beast to sleep with you, someone who bought any other social Charm in the game could have made it done whatever they needed it to do, faster, and without the chances of it going horribly wrong (Intimacies of lust are super dangerous, since you can't really use them to convince someone to STOP doing something, if that something ends with their dick in your mouth).

Harmonious Presence Meditation is far and away the best buy.

So, I'm playing a solar using Righteous Devil Style, and I'm planning to invest in ride since I have no Athletics and a recent fight has shown me I need some way of disengaging from melee. I'm at Essence 2, and close-ish to Essence 3. What Ride charms would you say are essential to getting out of melee and preventing my mount from dying to other exalted enemies?

>>48114985

Elusive Mount Technique is the big one. Reflexively disengaging is HUGE.

>>48114477
>When buying 3 Essence 1 Charms for a simple basic social fu suite, is Celestial Bliss Trick the best bang for the buck?
Absolutely not. If you want 3 basic, Essence 1 charms for a social suite, you want Harmonious Presence Meditation, Tiger's Dread Symmetry, and Masterful Performance Exercise.

If you're willing to devote five charms, rather than three, expand that to include Shadow Over Day and Stubborn Boar Defense.

The former gives you a socially aggressive suite for extremely cheap, extremely effective, consistent social bonuses. The latter two give you the ability to gain +1 Guile for 1m (or +2 Guile for 2m at Essence 2) and give you a free Resolve boost against any future attempts to convince you of something after someone has failed at least once.

Combined, they also guarantee that you'll have access to the Presence, Performance, Integrity, and Socialize Excellencies, regardless of whether or not you Favored them.

That's the basic social suite. It can easily be expanded with other cheap-but-good effects, like Listener-Swaying Argument, but with just those basics you'll be better at social stuff than 99.9% of the people you run into, including gods, demons, and other exalts.

Do non-Solars suffer a penalty for acting against their Intimacies?

>>48115277
>Do non-Solars suffer a penalty for acting against their Intimacies?
You mean in terms of Limit?

Yes. They just have different-flavored Limit Breaks is all.

>>48115277

As in, are there general consequences for doing so other than gaining Limit? Not in specific, no.

>>48115332

We don't actually know that for sure.

It might be possible that e.g. Sidereals don't gain Limit from going against Ties, while Lunars don't gain Limit from going against Principles, or some other thing.

>>48115372
Since that's described as the way Limit works, rather than described as the way Limit 'for Solars' works, I'd assume it works that way for each of the other splats until explicitly described otherwise. Assuming that things do follow the pattern, rather than making the assumption with literally zero basis.

>>48115636

Everything is described as the way it works in general, because the core book is from the perspective of Solars.

Unless you think Lunars are going to gain Solar XP for acting inline with the Solar castes.

>>48115672
Solar XP, unlike Limit, is described as working that way specifically for Solars, and even if it wasn't the fact that Solar is in the name indicates that it would be specific to them.

There is literally nothing in the description of what Limit is or how it works that does so much to even suggest that other Exalts don't get it for similar reasons.

>>48115636
>That Great Curse still haunts the Solar Exalted to this day, leaving a seed of darkness in each hero Chosen by the Unconquered Sun. The Curse expresses itself in moments of great stress and hardship, inflating the Solar’s passions into gross displays of unrestrained and destructive excess. The growing strength of the Great Curse is measured by a trait called Limit.
>
>Limit
>Limit is a measure of stress, self-doubt, and mental instability. As a Solar accrues Limit, the power of the Great Curse gains a stronger purchase on his soul. While this growing corruption may be invisible to others, the cursed Exalt finds his thoughts wandering in darker directions. When he reaches 10 Limit, the Curse spills over and can no longer be contained, erupting into Limit Break.
>
>The Solar Exalted gain Limit in the following ways:
>[...]
Limit is described as specifically being relevant to Solars in the Ex3 core.

>>48115700
>is described as working that way specifically for Solars,

It's actually not.

>In addition to normal experience points, players have the opportunity to gain Solar experience in each session
>Characters can gain 2 points of solar experience by fulfilling one of the following criteria per session:
>Characters can gain 2 points of solar experience by fulfilling one of the following criteria per session:

And in any case you're double wrong >>48115747

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So what I'm hearing is that everyone gets Solar XP, but only Solars get Limit? natural language is awesome!

requesting a good image for whitewolfediting.jpg

>>48115892

Shitposting just because you got called out is poor form, Holden.

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>>48115936
At least I have a good image for this!

>>48115892
>but only Solars get Limit?
where the fuck do you get this from

>>48112454
Have a non combat focused enemy. Generally only combat guys disappear forever when they lose once

>>48107093

Not hugely. Dots are handed out like candy at chargen. It's no worse than a ranged character having to get Attack Ability: 5 and Dodge: 5

>>48112454

Spirits can often dematerialize and Hurry Home, although there are tools the players can take to avoid that. Sorcerers can Travel Without Distance - especially Lunars with that hax auto-cast charm.