Exalted General - /exg/: Fukkin' Solars Edition

>>52763481
Part 2 of the Arms of the Chosen Preview recently dropped: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7FqViticwNuam9lbVJBWFhJM2s/view

>>52763661
Hm? Gnomon's ratings are the same as any other Medium artifact weapon. I think they just printed it again for ease of reference.

>>52763688
realized that right after posting. I thought it was giving those +3 as a bonus. I need sleep

Have the devs ever said anything about Craft (Genesis) appearing in 3e?

gnomon looks cool as fuck

>>52764111
I don't think it will, but since we now have developers that actually engage with the fanbase through means other than sarcasm and vague hintwank you might actually want to actually ask the devs if it will. And if not, what kind of crafting would be needed to make things similar to what you used to need Genesis for.

>>52764445
i second this

goddamned timeshifting staff with violet colors

Is it just me or is Gnomon look very powerful for a 4? I mean I am not complaining but I feel like I have been gimping artifacts if this is a level 4.

>>52765045
ditto honestly I have been doing N/A at only moderately better than this. Though I have separated n/a artifacts into 3 tiers

>>52765101
I don't think N/A should be stronger than 5 in direct combat. They should act on a larger scale instead.

>>52765101
>3 tiers
what exactly are these three tiers and how big is the difference between them?

>>52764445
Fuck, it is. It's the return of the cool evocations from the leak. I am consciously hyped.

>>52765210
well low tier N/A was Just like a 5 dot but with Grander reach. Mid tier covers Powerful utility items and powerful unique weapons. Examples being a sword whom could trade automatic successes you would have got from charms letting you add effects to them instead or a Cloak that hid your motes being spent from being detected by manses and other such effects.

High tier was things that are super hard to reproduce and can't be made by wyld shaping or the like. And it is Things on par with the defense grid.

>>52763500

I do sorta wish they'd skipped Arms in favor of working on exalts. Get out the core setting exalts (DB, Lunars, Sids) before doing splatbooks so you are sure how each exalt will interact with it's artifacts.

>>52765316
I'm not too concerned about that because I feel like in getting these toys out you can set some flavorful groundwork. Like, Gnomon is absolutely awesome for Sidereals as well as sneaky Solar types.

>>52765316
I dunno. DBs are the most artifact-heavy faction in the setting, so it seems sensible to have the Big Book O'Toys out between it and the Default PCs corebook.

>>52765045
Yeah. I'd put it at a 5. I feel like they've marked it down hard for not having a grand killstick statline.

>>52765654
>I feel like they've marked it down hard for not having a grand killstick statline.

That doesn't make sense. Heavy weapons are garbage in 3e. Now if what you meant is dual-wielded short killstick statline, then I'd agree.

plz no bully sidereals

>>52763500

Is it just me, or does it prematurely terminate. What happens if the wielder achieves ten legendary social goals?

>>52764460
Honestly I expect that large chunks of that is now covered by Sorcerous Projects.

>>52763481
would you allow a 2e flaw similar to intolerance, or like an inverted virtue-specialty, where instead of the penalties on social attacks you'd treat that class of people/beings with 1 or more dots of compassion penalty?

(for example when it comes to beastmen, mutants, atabeasts, and nonhuman sentients your compassion is 1 lower since they're not <i>really</i> people)

and if so, how would you balance it?

>>52765316
that'd have been nice.

but I get the feeling this is meant to be even more solar focused than previous. (didn't one of the devs describe all other splats as props for the solar's story?)

when choosing armor what's better?

soak +9L/+9B? or an increase in hardness from 2 to 5?

and does this answer change between 2e and 2.5?

>>52766872
>not bullying the cutie bluesid waifu
what are you? Gay?

>>52765045
I think the goal is that 5-dots should be really setting-warping in some way. A sword that murders armies is that moreso than a staff that makes you better in personal combat and gives you tasty fruit.

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>>52763481
>Question of the thread: What's the douchiest Exalted character you've ever played?

Pretty much pic related, with a dash of sending people to murder factories to rip out their souls for my own purposes. Being a Solar is fun.

>>52765045

It's very powerful in a singular manner, making it useful for fighting one person at a time. The three 5 dot artefact weapons that we've seen so far (Black Wind, Stormcaller, and Volcano Cutter) can wipe out entire armies and city blocks with a single Evocation. Gnomon just doesn't shape up in comparison.

Apologies for this, but does anyone happen to have a suggestion for a character creation program for 2.5? I tried Anathema, but the download doesn't seem to be working. As in, I hit download, and then it takes me to a page which takes too long to respond, and doesn't give me a download.

So I was hoping someone might have a suggestion for a different character software, or some way to get ahold of the program.

Anyone played a gunner character with Golden Exhalation and/or Righteous Devil Style?

Emerald Circle Bump

>>52770291
If the guy who was going to play a Zenith in my game never comes back, the circles NPC Zenith will be a Righteous Devil stylist.

>>52765045
I know the Night caste player in my group sent me a link to this. "I want this!" Being able to start combat, make a free decisive attack against someone and not reset to base Initiative (which is always really high at the start of the battle) would be like gold too him.

>>52771674
the night caste players are always like this though. i guess that caste just attracts those kinds of players.

>>52771815

It helps that it'd be great with Stealth to open combat with. As an aside, charms that create a reflexive clash like Fervent Blow attack would still work against the time stop abilities, right?

>>52771939
I assume so, though it makes stunting it hilarious.

>>52771970

>Hilarious

How so? "The wilder of Gnomon slips and falls on my blade" or something else entirely?

>>52771970
>To be frank, I'm glad I could defeat you quickly
>Only I, DIO, should have power over stopped time

>>52768073
What Exalt type and build?

The hardness lets you ignore anything that would have done 5 damage or less and doesn't work on aggravated. The soak subtracts from raw damage and the lethal soak number also applies to aggravated if it's from armor.

Characters have natural soak based on their stamina but not natural hardness which is mostly from armor. hardness doesn't stack but soak does.

>>52772018
Since Fervent Blow is Decisive only, I was thinking more of a "I suddenly find my spear protruding through the chest of an old man wearing elegant robes and an odd looking staff."
>>52772076
I should really catch up on this, there's probably some choice ideas for some evocations.

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>>52769982
>2.5e
butwhy.txt
https://mega.nz/#!Qwx2RI6A!Mg8QNXd0XpVnD96opMLzpN3fvd9i7yHPpNCz1zDhlQ0

>>52772333
>https://mega.nz/#!Qwx2RI6A!Mg8QNXd0XpVnD96opMLzpN3fvd9i7yHPpNCz1zDhlQ0

Curiosity. I've never tried any edition, and all the hype on the net seems to revolve around 2e/2.5, so I figured I'd see what the heck it's all about.

Thank you for the link, by the way!

>>52772394
Where are you visiting that there is any hype about 2/2.5?

>>52772411
Er, all the hype about Exalted in general. The whole Perfects Block Everything! and all that. ... My situation's weird, okay?

>>52772411
>>52772428

It is not /recent/ hype, I feel compelled to point out. Also, it might actually be about 1e, for all I know.

... I have no idea what I'm doing, basically, and want to figure out.

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Would you allow a player to make a character who exalted purely because he really, really wanted to? Like

>Be son of a merchant
>Get attacked by bandits
>Solar Circle rescues you, explains a little about what they are during the night, effectively be a one-off NPC for a party.
>Become desperately obsessed with becoming one, ultimately exalting purely because of sheer jealous willpower.

>>52772468

Go 3e. Just go 3e. If you have never played Exalted before go 3e. The only reason anyone plays 2.5 still is if your splat is not Solars. And as soon as other splats start coming out for 3e the reason to play 2.5 is gone.

2.5 made one of the worst (although nowhere near the actual worst) systems ever somewhat playable. And I mean somewhat. Do not touch 2.5. 1e or 3e are your only real options. And 1e is superior in lore introduction but not in system. So read the 1e lore. Then add in the new places of the 3e lore (Dreaming Sea, Caul, minor cool new city-states). Ignore 2e lore. Then learn the 3e system.

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>>52772627

No.

>>52772627

Isn't that the life goal of the Perfect of Paragon? Sounds like a good way to end up as an Infernal.

>>52772708
>Being Princess Morebucks or Syndrome [Incredibles] as an Infernal

I did not know I wanted this. That sounds like it'd make a good resentful petty villain.

>>52772627
No, but it sounds like a good background for an Infernal or an Abyssal.

>>52772641
I mean. Some of the stuff I'm curious about is the other splats. I've strongly considered looking through the various homebrew, but I feel like unless I know what the actual 'baselines' of those are, using the homebrews would be a bad idea.

So I probably will use 3e, but I still want to know how the previous editions actually worked, so I can understand what the hell people are talking about when they talk about them. I wanted the Anathema because it helps me get a grip on the system if I've made characters for it.

>>52772769

Make them a Fiend caste to maximise the petty narcissism.

>N/A Artifacts are plot devices that operate almost on the level of Storyteller fiat, like the Eye of Autochthon. Their Evocations aren't just regular Evocations cranked up to a higher power level. They work on a higher scale and can transcend many of the implicit limitations of the setting. You'll see some examples in Arms.

Oh thank god, super duper n/a evocations would have recreated the elder problem.

>>52772793
Lunars have never been done right so unless you are a furfag ignore them and hope 3e does not fuck them up. Sidereals have been done right in spirit but never in system and are one of my personal favorite Exalts. However they should only be played by experienced Exalted players. Dragonblooded are cool enough but weaker in general in everything. 2e's book was basically a single page saying read 1e's Dragonblooded book written over a couple hundred pages. It was also written before the core 2e book was finished. Abyssals are Solars with black paint and cause excessive blood explosions. Infernals were pretty cool but some fans of that group ruined it for everybody. Also I would only recommend experienced Exalted players play this for maximum enjoyment. Alchemicals are amazing but are nearly impossible to get working in main setting as they have their own setting that can interact with the main setting but I have yet to see be done right.

For a first game you want to play Solars to get into the groove of things and feel like a badass at all times. Then later on you want to start exploring the other Exalted niches and find your actual favorite Exalt types. Sometimes people pick Solars as their favorite though.

>>52769982

http://www.edexalted.com/default.asp

this one is great(i like it better than anathema anyway), the only thing that'd make it better is if it had fancy flowcharts like anathema or if it had plans for a 3e version

>>52767252
According to the devs, that's an editing fragment to be chopped out of the final version and can be safely ignored.

>>52772871

I can't wait to start crafting all that shit.

>>52772988
solars are boring as shit. at least be a dragonblood or something

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>>52772822
desu Fiends are most interesting Infernal.

>>52772988
I see, thank you. So start the players on Solars 3e, and hope the other books come out before the campaign finishes? And just read the 1e books for the lore? Also; are any of the splat homebrews any good? I was hoping to use the other splats for, well, fleshing out the setting and stuff, and while the QCs exist, I feel like I'd get through them too quickly, and want to throw different types of characters at the players.

>>52773058
Bookmarking, thank you!

>>52772708
>Isn't that the life goal of the Perfect of Paragon?

It is, yes, and in private I wouldn't be surprised if he occasionally has breakdowns of "I WANNA BE AN EXALT I WANNA I WANNA I WANNA"

>>52773254
I'd give him a bit more credit than that.

Like, I'd imagine that one of the Southern Deathlords offered him a suicide-ritual that would exalt him as an Abyssal and he told them to go fuck themselves. He doesn't just want to be an Exalt, he wants to rule Creation. Just any old exaltation wouldn't be good enough for him, it HAS to be Solar.

>>52773122
>solars are boring as shit
I've never understood this opinion

>>52773254

Infernal Exaltation seems really likely for him.

SWLiHN probably approves of his methods already - and while a new Domain of Stately Order may still have a little bit too much free will, it's a great improvement.

Or Abyssal, after he's finally killed by some PC's after his Staff.

>>52773171
>and hope the other books come out before the campaign finishes

correct this line to "before I die"

>>52773254
"sorry to interupt, but perhaps we can come to an arrangement?"

followed by him reflexively squashing the poor (eddy posessed)healbug
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO dahamnit why'd i do that"

>>52773122
Solars are not boring at all. Fuck you!

>>52763500
Fucking shit how long ago was this? Dammit I probably missed all the hype shit already
>>52764111
Fucking around with species is explicitly listed as a thing you can do with sorcerers workings.

>>52773512

Dropped in the most recent Monday Meeting.

>>52773512
>Fucking shit how long ago was this?

His post was right when it happened.

So what exactly made 1e fluff better than 2e fluff?

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>>52773800

Put simply, less retardation overall. It wasn't perfect, but it was the purest representation of Exalted and what it was supposed to be about.

2E was Exalted as viewed by people who didn't really play 1E, and 3E so far seems to be someones homebrew campaign with the word "Exalted" written hastily on the cover before it was shoved out the door. It's closer in spirit to 1E than 2E was, but it changes so much stuff and alters a few fundamental setting rules to the point it's really not the same world anyway.

>>52773800

2e fluff is generally considered bad for two reasons. First it tired to explain everything rather then leave any mystery or storyteller interpretation. While you would think more information is a good thing it leads you down a path where people are being controlled by nanomachines and the sun is a giant airship. Second the magitech influence. Straight out of the gate you had magitech everywhere. Now I love magitech so I did not mind that to much but it was awfully dull magitech. 1e had magitech sure but it was more subdued and storyhooks existed but remained vague and up to the storyteller how they wanted to take it.

Plus the writing itself was... I don't know more flavorful. Savage Seas was basically a sailing book. It actually taught me a lot about sailing and how things worked in Exalted. It was just an introductory but I still found it very helpful for running a game with ships. Games of Divinity is considered one of the best books in the Exalted line. So that is why mostly.

>>52772627

Sounds like a Zenith to me, especially if you train to exhaustion, then pick a fight with a meteor shower.

>>52773254

Wouldn't exalting wipe away all of the oaths sworn to the sceptre? Basically on exalting Paragon riots, massive loss of life, becomes a shadowland.

>>52773800
The problem with 2nd edition fluff was that Chambers (the developer) specifically did not want new ideas that diverged too much from 1st edition. What he wanted to see in 2nd edition, was for 2nd edition to primarily focus on expanding what 1st edition had to offer. This ended up with 2nd edition spending waaaay too much time going into a lot a lot of detail on stuff that really wasn't important. Or it would confirm things that had merely been tossed out as a possibility by other authors (like the Three Sphere's Cataclysm, which in First Edition was presented as an apocryphal story whereas 2nd edition confirmed it as fact).

So overall, while 2nd edition fluff was actually pretty close to 1st edition fluff, it often had a lot more details and very often those details weren't terribly good and actually made stuff worse than what we had had before.

Sometimes when you get all the details, those details make things seem less wondrous and neat than if it hadn't gotten them.

>>52773800
Exalted is, on paper, a game about playing Illiad, Odessy, Gilgamesh, Journey to the West and so on.
In exalted 2e you could invade thorns from a giant aerial command base straight out of the avengers, zip lining in mortals wearing power armor and wielding laser cannons.

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>>52773946
>Straight out of the gate you had magitech everywhere

That is a bit of a misconception. It wasn't everywhere. It was more common than 1E, but still wasn't common at all. I think most people just were influenced, overly so, by one of the first supplements being a magitech book.

>>52774223

So... it got a little bit Hindu?

>>52774251
It was the second book in the line. And it was filled with nothing but magitech.

>>52774223
>you could invade thorns from a giant aerial command base straight out of the avengers, zip lining in mortals wearing power armor and wielding laser cannons.

To be fair, I think the Illiad would be have been a lot cooler if that had been Odysseus' plan instead of the stupid wooden horse.

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>>52774301

Like I said, people were overly influenced by it being the first supplement. Also it was the magitech book, what did you expect to see in it other than magitech?

>>52774223
So First Edition was Greek mythology and Second Edition was Hindu mythology.

>>52774324
It also increased in prevalence towards the end of the line. Somebody already mentioned the Daystar, for example.

>>52774223
>>52774251

I think that Factory cathedrals were a great problem here. Allowing players to have access to first age wonders incredibly quickly.

Makes me wonder how power amour will work in Ex3 with every artefact being completely unique.

Feel like running this for my group in a week or two, but they only really play 5e. I'll kind of be learning it myself so is there anything in particular that might make the crossover easier?

My players generally tend to be glory hogs or mass murdering lunatics anyway so I figure they'll have fun.

>>52773310

It comes from the same place as people who stop doing something once everyone else is doing it. Everyone's a Solar, so you've got to pick something more obscure to demonstrate just how original and creative you are. Usually Infernal, because nothing is more original and creative than turning into a Primordial, like every other Infernal.

>>52775657

Tomb of the Exalted Dream is a one shot campaign designed to allow new comers to ease themselves into the game. There's a link to it in the OP, under 3E Core and Splats.

http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/exalted/1069023-ask-the-devs?p=1080599#post1080599

>"Ancient warstriders constructed at the height of the First Age may have more elegant or esoteric control mechanisms—levitating crystals that orbit around the pilot, complex control interfaces of solid light, liquid metal that molds itself to the pilot’s body—but still operate on the same principle of emulating the pilot’s movements."
>liquid metal that molds itself to the pilot's body

So who's ready for GANDAMU FAITO?

>>52773310
Solars are the ultimate marysue, everything they do is special...which tends to end up blurring into being a bland "nothing is special" kind of general shininess that makes the whole game trivial.

>>52773800
2e tried not to repeat anything 1e printed

>>52776425
...well somebody said that at the beginning, but in practice it didn't work quite like that

>>52776425
which is hilarious given the amount of lazy fucking copy/paste jobs from 1e that 2e would do

>>52774501
I doubt it will exist at all. Power armor was always just regular artifact armor with bells and whistles strapped on, can you name anything power armor could do that regular artifact armor can't do with evocations?

>>52776482

Gunzosha is named as being an example of First Age Artifice in the Core. Just need to see now how many Lookshy has. A dozen unique ones? No problem. More than fifty? Kind of waters it down for me.

>>52776573
iirc the power armor is basically the least of first age artifice

They are not even trying anymore.

>>52776400 (You) (You)
>>52775659
>>52776400 (You) (You)
infernals are interesting mechanically(and their powers are more fun)

sidereals would be awesome...if they were functional. but the idea of their splat is cool in spirit.


lunars could have had potential...but they suck because theres never been a clear idea of what they were even for. you can't build a splat on "lets make a vague werewolf:apocalypse reference" and "weaker than solars" alone.(incidentally this is why I oppose the idea of <strike>prometheans</strike>I mean "liminals"(well that and stealing the only potential abyssals had to branch out))


abyssals are shit. waay below anything else. never play abyssals. just emo shits, solar's dark mirror who isn't allowed to be cool or have any fun toys.


____________________________
dragonbloods are still exalts, they're mechanically straight forward like solars, and they're weak enough you can actually do something without instantly destroying the entire setting.

alchemicals are the best splat, but sequestered off in their own world.

play one of those two

>>52776731
abyssals are railroaded into choosing between "murderfuck soulshitter" or "pathetic redemption quest" and either option kills the story and hyjacks any plot

[ugg, no idea why that line was breaking spacing if left int he original post but deleting it fixes things?]

>That new artifact
Quick, whats the multi attack charm for thrown. I want to 'HOW MANY KNIVES CAN YOU THROW IN THE FROZEN TIME'

>>52773946
>muh magitech
Exalted's problem, and this is true through every edition, is that Solars are basically impossible to challenge in groups without resorting to the most powerful things in the setting.

The whole premise is flawed, probably irrevocably, until they let go of Solars as the default splat.

>>52776845
>Exalt is bad because the idea behind Exalt is bad.
Who'd a thunk it?

Part #300 of the Onyx Path freelancing for free chronicles

>BUT: even with all the above in place, if you have been unpaid for work you have completed for us under contract, I absolutely want you to know you can contact me directly at [email protected]. We have a great team, but mistakes happen, so I’m here to help

So after Rich posted updates including the above in the Monday Meeting notes, Lucy Darling, one of the freelance writers on Exalted posted on twitter:

bear cleric Retweeted Holden Shearer
>Don't sign the contract if you don't like the terms! ...except somehow the contract comes after work is submitted and published?

bear cleric added,

>how does one submit a pay schedule when the company refuses to issue a contract in the first place? real head-scratcher right there

> I mean that is why it was easy for me to backflip out of that cluster of issues but my handshake deal is only with people I trust.
> "Write 20k"
>"Can't cover it in 20k, got it in 30k"
>"Well we still only pay on the 20k, will pub the 30k"

>Nah mate, that is poor form.
>How many times does that have to happen before you insist that all contracta cover what was actually written?

>And I mean, let's be real, don't make writers or devs contracts and admin unless you are paying them for that. Which is NOT by the word.

>Or I guess you could pay them by the word for admin, research prep, marketing, progress blogs...

So given this and people complaining about various WoD writers being underpaid, it seems like people should get contracts for everything if you want to freelance for OPP - if they fudge down to not knowing what books are coming out, then to preagree a contract template, with automatic copyrights reverting to you for everything sent to them but not covered under contract.

If they refuse, then you've got a bunch of emails in full details showing how OPP is trying to screw its writers over, while its head flew out to Italy.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1ryglARjgSKqboFkNsayNBWvBUtVTWXCB4Aph6XGZ8/edit?usp=sharing

This is my first attempt homebrew artifact/evocations. Pls no bully. I'm trying to come up with a way to give it just a bit of utility for things other than fighting spirits- maybe using the Essence rating of slain spirits as some kind of internal resource similar to Stormcaller's Intensity, but less powerful.

Thoughts?

How many different exalt types are stuffed inside Lunars? And how many are actually good?

* Wild
* Commune with Nature
* Animals
* Shapeshifting into animals
* Shapeshifting into people
* Shapeshifting into people
* Moon
* Blood
* Barbarians
* Revenge
* Loss
* Tattoos
* Witches
* Shamans
* All rounder in abilities
* Trickster
* Companionship.
* Rage
* The Urban Jungle
* Furries

I know some of the new enemy splats are pulling these themes out of Lunars to face, but half of them are down to the fanbase reading things not there, and also mutual contradictory writings. There's also silver solar/infernal/abyssal themes in offical or fan projects.

Without naming any splats from these themes the "real" Lunars, and all the others just imitators, what groups of themes are actually coherent here for playing in pure and mixed splat games?

>>52776784
A) None, because you're using a staff
B) None, because you can't use simple charms

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>>52776999
>it seems like people should get contracts for everything if you want to freelance for OPP - if they fudge down to not knowing what books are coming out, then to preagree a contract template, with automatic copyrights reverting to you for everything sent to them but not covered under contract.
You won't get hired asking for that sort of contract cutout. It's not like Rich has legal counsel to handle contract issues for him.

Making RPGs is not really a business. It's a hobby that sometimes pays you money.

>>52777311
That's wrong though, it says you can use any skill and also the thrown charms are either supplemental or instant

>>52777184
I don't really know that taking things *away* from lunars would be the way to fix them

and if you're gonna complain about them having too many things you'd disassemble solars first anyway. half the 3e charms seem to overstep solar's themes of "human skills plus mythic awesome, with a dash of grossly incandescent"

>>52776999
>So given this and people complaining about various WoD writers being underpaid, it seems like people should get contracts for everything if you want to freelance for OPP - if they fudge down to not knowing what books are coming out, then to preagree a contract template, with automatic copyrights reverting to you for everything sent to them but not covered under contract.
>If they refuse, then you've got a bunch of emails in full details showing how OPP is trying to screw its writers over, while its head flew out to Italy.

Freelancers should ALWAYS get things down in writing, and never slack on the professional security where possible.

It's pretty damned normal for RPG companies to fuck over their freelancers, because it's one of those industries full of passionate types who are easy to replace, and also full of very petty drama.

And going public with details generally means nothing - even when outright crime occurred - look at Catalyst Game Labs. Loren Coleman stole nearly a million dollars from freelancer's wages and convention money, was caught, got a slap on the wrist and was forgiven in the name of Mormon kindness (no joke). Then they just purged their freelancers of dissenters and started a new edition.

Fan reaction was heated and angry!

For a few months.

Then they stopped caring and started buying new books.

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>>52777311
I see no reason you can't just stunt Final Hour Hastening to be throwing multiple knives from close range - as part of Step Between Seconds you are slamming the staff to the ground after all

>>52777348

You're not wrong - they can always find someone willing to leave themselves open to exploitation.

But that attitude is why the industry gets away with treating its freelancers like shit.

...hm

>>52776352
READY
GO!

>>52777398
So the action you can take on your frozen time is "ready weapon" to switch between your staff and your thrown weapon. You can't flurry with simple charms.

Charms can be instant and still be simple. Duration and type are two different things. Shower of Deadly Blades (the thrown AoE multiattack) is both instant and simple.

>>52777348
Duhhh it's a HOBBY, shitty practices are expected, is a moronic argument.

Hell if its a hobby, freelancers should be paying Rich for the privilege of working for Exalted, after all we pay to buy the books, why shouldn't the writers pay to enjoy their hobby.

There's a big difference between "this industry pays peanuts" and "this industry tries to trick people into working for free".

>It's not like Rich has legal counsel to handle contract issues for him.

So how is he writing the contracts then? Why can't he make a template example one visible on the OPP website to let people know what they are getting into?

>>52777410
Too many theme isn't the problem, the fact that a bunch of them clash is.

It's like dipping pizza in yoghurt and spreading jellied Surströmming on top

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>>52776784

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k1sZSSx99AnOGMxHGW3Bd3nqU6aBomSZTQphX8QHqyM/edit

>>52777666
>https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k1sZSSx99AnOGMxHGW3Bd3nqU6aBomSZTQphX8QHqyM/edit
How many references did you cram into this thing?

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>>52777741

Mainly one.

>>52777516
Okay, I just misread and I'm sorry but cascade of cutting terror should work because it explicitly says take a single action with any ability so a decisive thrown attack both swarm culling instinct and cascade of cutting terror would be use able make a small storm of knives appear in that moment

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>>52777482
>But that attitude is why the industry gets away with treating its freelancers like shit.
Stop. It's not an industry, it's a hobby. That's why many professional writers work in the actual gaming industry and occasionally do RPG work essentially because they want to.

>>52777542
>Hell if its a hobby, freelancers should be paying Rich for the privilege of working for Exalted, after all we pay to buy the books, why shouldn't the writers pay to enjoy their hobby.
Reductio ad absurdum is all you've got?

>>52777542
>There's a big difference between "this industry pays peanuts" and "this industry tries to trick people into working for free".
...not really. Let me put it this way. If your boss contracts you to produce 140 widgets a day and you produce 142 widgets a day, he's within his rights to say he won't pay you for the extra widgets because he didn't ask for them. That's actually fairly well-enshrined in contract law.

>>52777542
>So how is he writing the contracts then?
Anyone can construct a contract. All it takes is a handshake in the US. A written agreement (like an email) is even better. I imagine Rich has a boilerplate contract for freelancers. Something that includes a few key phrases: "at will" "obligation lies with the contractor" "copyright remains with the contracting party" etc.

For example, if I were to send you an email requesting a 1 lb hunk of feta cheese and you responded "certainly," in theory you're contractually obligated to produce said cheese under US contract law.

Challenging that would require paying a lawyer to sort it out, usually.

>>52777811
>It's not an industry, it's a hobby.

It's an industry that creates products for a hobbyist market.

Honestly it seems like you're trying to argue that - as it is merely a hobby - freelancers shouldn't expect, and don't deserve, fair remuneration for their work.

But feel free to prove that it isn't an industry.

>>52777811
>It's not an industry, it's a hobby.

>RPG industry is not an industry
What?

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>>52776352
>warstriders
>ever being good

I'll believe it when I see it. Two editions now I've been let down by what should be one of the best pieces of equipment to have, when in reality they were so tremendously shit they were a waste in every possible way.

>>52778613
I'd like to say I blame you, but by god I can't.

>>52778728

Worst part is I'm a huge fan of mecha, so every time they bring them up in an edition was basically them crushing my dreams of ever getting to CHES-TOOOOOOOOOO something.

https://youtu.be/Q5nBZT9QqFM

>>52778613
The thing with warstriders is that they can't be too good. Ultimately my Solar needs to be able to fist-fight a Terrestrial piloting a Guymelef, parrying the Knightmare Frame with his own meaty, Exalted fists, before ripping the defeated DB from the cockpit of the Gundam.

>>52778613
I expect they'll be capable of massive, vast destruction that normal artifacts can't compare to, and have particular utility against things that are great and mighty or armies of tiger warriors, but be less good when you're fighting one guy with a bone to pick.

>>52778807

I'd be fine with them being too good. Anything less and they're probably not going to be worth whatever ridiculous costs they assign to them for yet another edition.

>>52778836
This is more or less what's been said by the devs on the OPP forums. Great for killing armies, great for taking on equally HUGE enemies, but not necessarily an instant win against an individual Exalt or other heroic sort.

>>52778858
With that said, if two people with equal capabilities get in a fight, I'm voting on the guy with the Warstrider.

>>52778911
Fair, but sometimes...

https://youtu.be/N3472Q6kvg0?t=62

>>52777782

Cascade would, although you'd also need Spitting Cobra Hand to ready a throwing weapon (and cascade is only a single target attack, even if it's fluffed as tonnes of knives).

favorite terrestrial control spell?

>>52780015
Flying Nimbus

>>52777811
it's very very hard to argue with the intentionally retarded. of course you're not hearing "good" arguments, you've got your head too far up your ass, they're all muffled with your own shit

>>52777811
>...not really. Let me put it this way. If your boss contracts you to produce 140 widgets a day and you produce 142 widgets a day, he's within his rights to say he won't pay you for the extra widgets because he didn't ask for them. That's actually fairly well-enshrined in contract law.

this bit is ok though

>>52780015
BIG
WOODEN
CLAWS

>>52774099
>Wouldn't exalting wipe away all of the oaths sworn to the sceptre? Basically on exalting Paragon riots, massive loss of life, becomes a shadowland.
Why on Earth would the Paragonese riot? They live in Paragon because they want the safety and stability of the place. They're not the Perfect's slaves or anything. The laws of Paragon aren't even any harsher than those of any other place, it's just that people actually have to follow them.

>>52780899
>The laws of Paragon aren't even any harsher than those of any other place

I doubt this'll be true in 3e, the devs seemed to have a real hateboner for the place.

>>52780962
So did Grabowski, who in one of his - frequently stupid as fuck, why is this guy so highly thought of anyways? - developer comments compared the place to North Korea. It was still described in 1E as place whose laws weren't that harsh.

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What on Creation does "unintelligibly abstruse" mean for an intimacy? I mean I understand the phrase basically means 'impossible to understand' but who am I supposed to kill with CBO? Fair Folk? Yozi?

>>52780962
>>52780899
Paragon's a pretty safe place compared to some of the barbaric, bronze-age shit holes or horrific Feudalism of Creation. Like in Paragon even the town guards are under oath to do their jobs correctly.

>>52781004
The harshest law of Paragon is really just that torture or death is the punishment for every crime.

>>52781089
I'm a "dura lex sed lex" kinda guy so that's okay in my books.

>>52780015
Reading "The Titan's Icy Breath" want to reskin it with final fantasy shiva ;)

>>52776845
This is wrong. Dragon-Blooded present formidable challenges to young Solars in 3e...unlike previous editions.

whats your favorite summon elemental and why?

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>>52776601
>>52776679
>>52776711
>>52776731
>>52776764
Well that was a journey.
Welcome to 4chan.

>>52781014
>unintelligibly
>In an unintelligible manner; "the foreigners spoke unintelligibly"

>unintelligible
>Impossible to understand

>abstruse
>Difficult to understand; obscure.

>>52781014
I personally replace it by "esoteric" Intimacies.

Say, if you want to protect your family or fight against the demons, it doesn't work. But if your sole belief is in the "certainty of fate" or "the emptiness of the souls" or something equally hermetic, kiss yourself goodbye.

>>52781014
There was a lot of discussion involving Holdorke as to what Cup Boils Over is meant to do. In the end, the answer was basically that Holden liked to jerk off to the idea of killing players who got rid of all intimacies to make them less vulnerable to social influence. No NPC is meant to be a valid target because NPCs pick up intimacies day to day about everyday things in a "realistic" manner.

>>52782807
This. With the possible exception of some absolutely fucked in the head individuals. But mostly this.

>>52782807
The "unintelligibly abstruse" part of it is meant to defeat another possible means of abusing the system--making your intimacies absurd and crazy shit that 99 percent of people will never be able to leverage usefully.

>>52782807
So Holden's solution is to take up charm count in a charm that will never really see use in a game and only serves as a trap option to the young and naive or as a tool for socially stunted GMs who rather than talk to their players have the solution of passively aggressively murdering them with death letters.

Somehow, this is unsurprising.

>>52782807

That's got to be the worst game design decision I've ever heard. And completely unnecessary.

>>52783999

It's a bit of a "Real Roleplayer" move, yeah.

>>52784050
It's one I can KIND of sympathize with because I've had a lot of shitty players who love to make edgy loner badass types who give no fucks about anything and communicate in growls and quips. But even then, you can just...kick those idiots out of the group, so what's the fucking point?

>>52784086
Honestly the charm is less retarded than many others. I can also see the reasoning behind it in-game.

>>52784086
>I've had a lot of shitty players who love to make edgy loner badass types who give no fucks about anything and communicate in growls and quips.

If people get their kicks playing an edgy growling character, that's perfectly fine. Remember kid: we play RPG to have fun.

>>52784699
Yeah, and those kind of character ruin my fun like nothing else.

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>>52784699
>Remember kid: we play RPG to have fun.
Since when?

>>52768073
Hardness is basically useless. Nobody is going to launch a decisive attack with less than 5 initiative.

>>52781014
Sounds dumb as fuck.

>Hurr sometimes people don't follow the law, better force them all to depend on my mercy to live rather than actually fix the reasons why people break laws

Glad that a side adventure in one of my games led to our circle's Dawn chucking him off the top roof of his palace after snapping that damn staff over his knee

Is Ten Ox Meditation any good? It looks like it's be easily outdone by the DYEL subtree of Athletics except for the fact that it's an E1 charm. Am I just missing something?

anybody got a good homebrew necromancy absorption?

>>52781089
>The harshest law of Paragon is really just that torture or death is the punishment for every crime.
Nah, the harsh part is that there will be torture or death if you don't turn yourself in. The actual punishments if you do turn yourself in aren't unusually harsh. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming that Paragon is all that nice place to live in, but ultimately the difference between it and any other nation is that its laws are better enforced.

>>52785050
Nobody has ever managed to fix the reason why people break laws, so while that is a noble goal and a beautiful ideal, it isn't exactly a viable plan.

>>52785766
It lets you perform feats of strength that you otherwise would qualify to try, even with ISE. I think the example they give in its use is poor, using a simple charm like ISE only takes a few seconds, so I think their description of using Ten-Ox as a way to immediately supplement your strength is a poor one. The solar can just grab the cart and use her regular fest of strength ability to slow it's descent into quicksand and use ISE while she does so. Is she needs even more strength, supplement that with Ten-Ox.

>>52787025
Wouldn't qualify to try* stupid phoneposting.

>>52782807
You know just because you can interpret a thing in a negative slighted fashion doesn't mean you actually kn- wait what the fuck am I doing.

KYS

>>52787025
Ten-Ox is also invalidated by Nine Aeons Thew, and since Ten-Ox isn't required for any of the other feats of strength charms, I'm not entirely sold on its purchase as a character who plans to buy up all those charms. I suppose it depends on how much of a stickler your ST is with the Feats of strength table, though.

>>52787096

In defence of TOM, it has no prerequisites, is E1, and doesn't cost any WP. On the other hand, if you're not looking to pick up Triumph-Forged God-Body, there's no reason to buy it. So it's not really the kind of speed bump that was endemic to 2e.

how many spells should a sorcery mentor be able to teach?(how many would you consider too many)

>>52763481
Does Essence 4 sound reasonable for the god of a major river? Not one of those fuckhuge Eastern rivers, but still, a large, regionally important river.

>>52787096
Nine Aeons is an essence 5 charm anon. You're only going to even have that by end game.

>>52787902
Which is why TOM has its place, albeit a boring one. I don't know of any other charm outside craft (which I haven't read) that doesn't actually do anything for you and only lets you meet a prerequisite to try an action. If you couldn't even hit an opponent that had "X evasion" and there was a melee charm that let you spend successes on an attack roll to meet the threshold to even try and hit him before then counting out the remaining sux to best his Evasion, that would be a shitty charm. Strength as a stat has a hard enough time as it is in the system, penalizing it by locking it out from trying certain actions and then giving a charm that says "okay you can try now XD" without actually helping the player is a bad charm. I'd rather count stunts as a bonus to strength prereqs for a feat of strength and skip TOM.

>>52784699

'Fun' is a hollow concept because it simply denotes enjoyment. It doesn't contain any sense of quality or merit and can't be used as a comparative measure. Using 'fun' as the prime metric is merely retreating into limp post-modern relativism where sitting around blowing rasberries is held to be every bit as good as mastering a musical instrument, writing the great American novel, or collaborating with others in a tabletop RPG to create a narrative and solve complex problems. 'Fun' is the term people turn to when they've run out of arguments.

If someone says the most important factor in an RPG is to 'have fun', it's a surefire sign that they understand nothing deeper and won't be invested in anything game-related. Their PCs will be a shallow collection of 'quirky' traits, in-game they'll be on their phones half the time and spouting memes the rest. GMs who worship at the altar of 'fun' are those who never really challenge their players - encounters are never lost, quests are never failed, and PCs never die, all because the GM fudges the dice and handwaves away any flaws in the players' plans. Every retarded meme idea that the lolsorandumbs come up with will be pandered to. Every Mary Sueflake character concept will be allowed. There will be no coherent plan for the campaign because the GM just wants to provide 'fun' in some pathetic, desperate bid for approval.

I avoid playing with anyone who throws the term 'fun' around casually. I look for players who have a bit of depth. If they say things like "I enjoy a mathematical challenge" or "I take pleasure in exploring the setting lore from within and deconstructing its problematic binary-opposites" or "I like finding solutions to the fictional problems we come across in our game" then I know I'm talking to someone who is not an idiot, and they might be alright. If they just say "Lol i play 4 le fun XDDDDD" then I am talking to another retard from the Cult of Fun, and their influence will only be negative.

>>52788161
>pasta

Never been relevant before, still isn't relevant now.

>>52778005
in·dus·try
ˈindəstrē/Submit
noun
noun: industry
1.
economic activity concerned with the processing of raw materials and manufacture of goods in factories.
"the competitiveness of American industry"
synonyms: manufacturing, production; construction
"Canadian industry"
a particular form or branch of economic or commercial activity.
plural noun: industries
"the car industry"
synonyms: business, trade, field, line (of business); informalracket
"the publishing industry"
informal
an activity or domain in which a great deal of time or effort is expended.
"the Shakespeare industry"
synonyms: business, trade, field, line (of business); informalracket
"the publishing industry"

Would you like to try again?

>>52784699
>If people get their kicks playing an edgy growling character, that's perfectly fine

Not so much when they don't play anything else and also cause enough problems for both the ST and the other players to sour them on that archetype.

>>52790162
With slightly less snark: RPG books are produced by either the gaming industry (Wizards of the Coast) or the publishing industry (White Wolf pre-collapse).

This isn't an industry unto itself; it cannot sustain itself financially in many cases which is part of why freelancers are paid so poorly. The other part is that the people involved in the hobby churn out metric shit tons of free content every day.

Kevin Crawford gives his games away and yet enough people have supported his work financially that he just quit his job to write RPGs full time.

Nevertheless, this is a hobby. I earn a living as a writer, but not as a writer of RPG books. I have to write other things to make ends meet and am fortunate to have a job where I write on salary rather than a per-word basis. That leaves me free to write for my hobby all I want on my own time with no real expectation of remuneration.

>>52790162
>a particular form or branch of economic or commercial activity.
>an activity or domain in which a great deal of time or effort is expended.

Did you even read it.

anybody want to share silurian spell variants?

I want to get an Exalted tattoo, because I'm about to quit a job I absolutely hate to work less hours and worse pay at a job I really like.

What should I get?
I've been thinking The Scripture of That Old Thing, maybe on my upper arm in a scroll, but I'm not certain, since I've never gotten a tattoo before.
Any suggestions?

>>52790285
I did.

You've missed the point, sadly.

There are two overlapping industries that RPG books are produced by: the gaming industry and the publishing industry. It is not a distinct industry, it is a hobby that straddles the two actual industries around it.

>>52790299
>I want to get an Exalted tattoo, because I'm about to quit a job I absolutely hate to work less hours and worse pay at a job I really like.
You should reconsider your decision-making process. One risk at a time, as my dad would say.

>>52790281
lol. "I reject reality and substitute my own, I will continue to headbutt the subject until people give up calling me an idiot"

no matter how pedantic you try to be, hiring people and refusing to pay them is a dick move and illegal, only reason they get away with shitting on freelancers is it's not worth the money to try and sue them over it(freelancers can't afford it, the industry doesn't have enough cash to attract lawyers to work on a percentage like you get with tobacco)

>>52790299
Might as well go all out and get a Caste mark tattooed to your forehead.

>>52790299
>Scripture of That Old Thing
which one was that again?

>>52790348
Well yeah. When it's cost effective for a business to treat its workers like crap, they'll treat them like crap. If workers don't like that, they cane go work for someone else. Welcome to Capitalism 101.

>>52790356
I second this

but which splat/caste is best?

>>52790375
THE SCRIPTURE OF THAT OLD THING
Once, there was that old thing…
…that wasn’t like a shadow, because you could see it too well.
…and that wasn’t like a light, because it didn’t make fl owers grow.
So, it had to be a maiden, but she didn’t mind.
“To know the world is to love it,” said she.

>>52780090
It's not quite like that. There's room to say, "you know, this went above and beyond what we need, so I can't pay you for this."

It's someone saying, "I want a doohickey, and I think it's 140 widgets to make one."

And then you make a 200-widget doohickey. And what would happen is you'd still get paid for the 140 widgets. Maybe they use the doohickey as is. Maybe they trim it down to fit the original scope of the project.

Or maybe they do what happened with the broken Winged Crane: strip it down to 140, pay for that, then requisition a thingamabob to go with the doohickey using those leftover widgets. You end up crafting about sixty new widgets for that along with the forty old ones.

Since it was constructed with widgets from the old project, there's no need to pay you for that. At all. Ever. They didn't pay you for those the first time around, so why change a winning strategy?

>>52790356
This. Tattoo Venus' symbol to your forehead. I'm sure it will make you really popular.

>>52787893

Depends a lot on the situation. Is it in the South and does it flood yearly like in Egypt or Mesopotamia? Do peoples lives revolve around the river? It is the life conduit of a nation(s) when it comes to trade or survival. If yes to one or more of these Essence 4 is not out of the question.

But the most important question is does it fit your story?

>>52790281
>I have to write other things to make ends meet and am fortunate to have a job where I write on salary rather than a per-word basis. That leaves me free to write for my hobby all I want on my own time with no real expectation of remuneration.

You can't make a living off of it, therefore it isn't a legitimate profession - it's just a hobby.

Sure. Whatever. Good for you?

>>52790466
>>52790356
I don't think that would go over well at the library I'm going to be working at.

>>52790325
I've wanted to get a tattoo for a while, and I realized today that the job I have is draining the joy out of the job I do enjoy doing.

>>52790466
venus? meh, go with secrets instead

>>52790299

I'm partial to the Elder Sutra of Understanding.

Everything is somewhere else.
Here, there is nothing.
Why stay?
Go find everything.

...but, appropriately for a Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic sutra - when it comes to labelling yourself with it, it's probably a bit self-defeating.

>>52790510
I'm not sure if it's in the South, as I'm designing a region for a potential, not certain, future game, and I haven't decided yet which Direction it will take place in. I figured I'd come up with a rough outline of the region, decide what Direction it suits best and then get the details in order. People's lives do revolve around the river, though, and it is the life conduit of a couple of nations, and I do want the god in question to have some bite to him, so I guess Essence 4 it is.

I also figured the river would have a few shallow, rocky, hard-to-traverse patches, something like the cataracts of the Nile. I thought I'd give each of these cataracts an Essence 2 god of their own, and have these lesser gods have something of a rebellious attitude towards the main river god. Does this sound reasonable?

Oh, and thanks for your answer, anon.

anybody know of some 3e homebrew thaumaturgies?

preferably a healing or warding style ability,

secondary request: maybe something that calls back to the general idea of 2e's alchemy/enchantment/geomancy

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>>52791027
>geomancy
I never understood or found anything about this

>>52790348
>hiring people and refusing to pay them is a dick move and illegal
When you contract someone for work and they perform work outside the scope of the contract, you're legally within your rights not to pay for it.

If they're contracted to create IP, it sucks for them, but the contract is ironclad on the IP portion.

>>52790919

I only mentioned the South because then it really is important. Elsewhere you can try dryland farming and hope the rains help out. With the South that river is everything to you. If it were to go you would be gone with it. Trade is good but there is a huge swath of Creation that only does local trade with the occasional Guild caravan coming through so if its not well connected with the rest of Creation its importance drops.

Of course you could say that this god was extremely powerful in the First Age and that because his domain is still there and people do worship him he never dropped in power through the ages.

>>52791027
Overthinking. Just port over 2e thaumaturgy, give each 3e thaumaturge a procedure or three, fuzz them up so they don't have a roll and are maybe a bit less 'magic a=magic a'
__________________________
maybe a traveling mortal thaumaturge knows how to whistle the note that puts bees to sleep so you can harvest their honey, and know the way to dance to perform to cause embers to roar into a campfire that dances along with you even if it's raining, and know how to weave straw into a rope that can bind a ghost so it can't leave a corpse to wander at night...but he doesn't know how to take a man's hair and weave it into a knot that spells out his name and burn it at sunset to call the man on the wind and compel him to walk to you across hundreds of miles!

But when a rival sorceress uses that ritual on him, if he answers her summons instead of resisting...he might have a chance to steal knowledge of that miracle from her, if he's clever.
(Arts of Husbandry, Alchemy, The Dead, and Husbandry again, in 2E terms)

>>52763481
If the creator of https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pfjmZKzcUqAX9mB58IAEUIFkZr8rq4CvdRRM4kzwwgU/edit#gid=1572445345 is around, I'd like to let them know the charmslist seems to be lacking the Socialize charms from A Clutch of Dragons.

And sice I have your attention, thanks for the otherwise capital work!

>>52791312
In fact, I actually liked 2e thaumaturgy as a study-able 'science', I liked the setting elements it added. so I took this a step further.

I ported in 2e thaumaturgy back into the setting in addition to the new stuff.(made it a wizard/sorcerer type divide, but of course much weaker).

first step was making the formalized procedures harder/expensive to learn and nearly impossible to create....unless you had the thaumaturgy merit(which I reduced in cost to 2 dots), for you it's instinctive. character automatically knows one ritual, can pick up others, and with work might even create a new one. formalizing the knsck into a procedure and teaching it to people without the gift is a difficult timesink so most won't bother.

So with the recent developments, what's the (serious) ETA for DBs?

>>52791511
Kickstarter 2-3 months book 4-9 months

>>52787441
I have both TOM and Nine Aeons, and there was one time I was forced to make a STR 10 feat without any WP left, so it saved my ass.

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>>52786462

You could fix the reason why in previous editions of Exalted. But most people complained it was mind rape.

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>>52790299

Get this, with my post number determining where

0: Dick
1: Forehead
2: Left arm bicep
3: Right arm bicep
4: Chest
5: Left forearm
6: Right forearm
7: Right Cheek (ass or face, your choice)
8: Left Cheek (again, ass or face, your choice)
9: Tramp stamp.

>>52791968
your post number isn't any of those numbers

>>52792002

Last number of the post, you know how this works. Enjoy the ebon dragon inked into your face and/or ass.

>>52791968
This is /tg/ you dumbass, you don't do post numbers here, you roll d10s.

>>52784086

But the mechanical shenanigans the charm allegedly addresses aren't even abusive. If you take no intimacies, you might have no weaknesses to social fu, but you have no defences either. All it takes is getting willpower tapped once, and getting a minor intimacy applied, and you're screwed. You can't spend willpower to stop the intimacy increasing, and with no counterveiling intimacies, there's nothing to invoke in a decision point to resist persuasion.

Whereas if you're loaded with in-character intimacies, the only thing you're likely to be able to be persuaded to do are the things you were likely to do anyway.

(Also, defending against shenanigans by including a single, high-essence, automatically-lethal Charm in a single splat largely designed for PCs is basically encoding passive-aggressive GMing into the games ruleset. Which is not out of character for Morkhol, so I shouldn't be surprised)

>>52784964

Why not? 3 initiative (not uncoincidentally the reset value) is statistically likely to generate a wound, and most humans only have one -0. A couple of decisives from base, and your opponent is racking up wound penalties - which might not matter for Soalrs, with their cheap penalty negators, but can hurt for most antagonists.

That's the tactic hardness stops.

>>52787902

Or alternatively, at char-gen. Yay supernals.

trying to find more thaumaturgy I ended up in this thread http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/exalted/812137-ex3-thaumaturgy-rituals/page8
their ideas(well, mostly ideas from other /similar/ threads I don't feel like pulling out of my history so I grabbed the one I still had open in another tab) about thaumaturgy sharing infrastructure and rarity make me hate it less. but I feel like it'd make holdmork "REEEEEEEE" about magitech

>>52793362
>supernals
One of the best things about this edition. Exacerbates the issue of the charms section being hard to read because there's a reason to read entire sections rather than just the essence 1 charms, but against that, there's a reason to ever read more than the essence 1 charms. That content is available, and you can start with it. It's pretty wonderful.

I'm not sure how the other Exalts are going to follow that. Maybe they'll just have the same mechanic with a different name, maybe something more fitting to their themes, but regardless I hope it accomplishes the same goal.

>>52793683

Halden and Vance have stated that Supernals is a Solar abyssal only thing. Lunars have Shapeshifting, Sidereals have Astrology, and Infernals have Shintai. Not too sure what DBs get, though.

>>52793683

I really don't. I don't like the things it did to the Solar charmset - locking powerful charms behind tonnes of charm-purchases instead of behind essence-gates, to disincentivize supernals from starting with endgame charms.

Other splats should have other advantages. Like I really hope DBs get the artifact background at a discount, to represent their control of artifact creation in the current era.

I appreciate Supernal with how it fits with the narrative - it's the reason Solars are so feared, and why Sidereal are so intent killing them young. It also means they can get away with not having a huge power-gap between Solars and the rest of the Celestials, while still making Solars incredibly dangerous and powerful. But Supernal should stay with Solariums, IMO, and it looks like thats the way the devs are going.

>>52793827
So somehow Lunar shapeshifting is going to be equivalent to starting with Essence 5 charms?

>>52794678
No, it won't. Because "having your own thing" isn't meant to undermine "Solars are on top".

>>52794777
So if you're running a mixed game, the Solar will be running around with Essence 5 charms right out of the gate, and the Lunar player will be stuck with Essence 1 charms.

That sure sounds like fun.

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>>52794895

Don't run mixed games. They're always shit unless they players really, REALLY don't mind being under/overpowered compared to the rest of the group.

>>52794895
A Solar running around with Essence 5 charms at character gate will also be be pigeonholed into that ability for a while, while the Lunar can be good at a broad spectrum of things, not to mention whatever benefits shape-shifting will bring. We should wait to see how Lunars turn out before we get concerned about mixed-splat group power balance.

>>52794895
Did you know? Exalt types aren't character classes.

>>52795244
I was in a long running campaign with two combat Solars and a stealthy/stealy/disguisy Solar, plus an Alchemical. The Alchemical was modular enough to do all smart stuff/crafting plus all social stuff when we needed them, plus helping with the b-list henchmen during the big fights.

Thats my only mixed group experience, but it was great.

>>52795365
Right, they're races. The castes are the classes

>>52795796
and like in all games, humans are SUPERIOOOOOR!!!!!!!!

>>52795765
alchemicals are a special case

>>52793333

Puts you at risk of an opponent fighting normally easily crashing you and murdering you for it.

>>52796126
Farscape.png

>>52796262

And if you're a PC, that's a concern. If you're an NPC whose only particular reason for existence is to participate in a particular fight scene, along with a bunch of your equally-disposable compatriots, being able to take a no-hardness Solar out with you through a series of cheap shots before you die might actually be the optimal outcome.

>>52784964

It's also good for ignoring DB animas. Particularly when there's lots of them flaring at once.

>>52791649
>>52791511

yeah the DB kickstarter won't happen until the project is actually almost complete, so probably considerably less turnaround on that one

>>52796139
>>52795765
With the good loadout and high clarity an Alchemical can throw more dices to a problem than a Solar. Kind of awesome.

I particularly like the charm that makes your clarity your ability rating. It is an absolute must have and I hope we'll get something equivalent for 3e.

>>52795244
Missing the point of mixed games.

How do I One Hand Fury in 3e?

>>52800645
Masturbate furiously during downtime.

>>52800661
...in character or at the table?

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>>52796583

https://pastebin.com/X4WZkFMe

is this crap?
(ignoring that I'm playing 2.5e)

>>52803237
also wanting to pseudo-port control spells and the various sorcerous enlightenment boons as sorcery absorption options

Does anyone know of any good Evocations for Wood Dragon Claws, Incomparable Body Arsenal, or the Talisman of 10K Eyes?

>>52801445
Both.

>>52790584
This Jupiter best girl. And most likely to be appropriately named maiden

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Don't mind me, just saving the thread for later with a timely age.

how many successes is a large number to expect for an average heroic mortal's perception roll? difficult but not impossible?

>>52805914

Depends on the mortal

For a bodyguard? 8 dice would be know as a keen eye which things rarely get by him.

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>>52805914
I like the question. It's a good thing to get right.

>>52805914
"As great heroes, Exalted characters are assumed to possess abundant confidence and competence. Tasks which run-of-the-mill individuals in Creation would consider challenging (such as picking a lock or removing a patient’s appendix without killing him) are ordinary fare for heroes.
Such tasks are appropriate for difficulty 1.

Performing challenging tasks under significant duress (such as picking a lock or removing an appendix in the dead of night, without sufficient light, in the midst of a howling storm) is appropriate for difficulty 2.

Tasks which might daunt even heroes, by contrast, are appropriate for difficulty 3. Examples might include plucking a gem from a nest of writhing serpents without being bitten, or breaking a man-eating horse born in the depths of the Wyld so it accepts the hero as its rider."

Basically anything more than difficulty 2 is crazy for mortals

>>52806053
>>52805974
thanks

>>52806078
>Tasks which might daunt even heroes, by contrast, are appropriate for difficulty 3
An ordinary dude rolling 3 dice (and not getting doubles on a 10) succeeds at that task 6.4% of the time. I guess that's about right? Certainly if failure means mortal peril that's the sort of task ordinary people shouldn't attempt.

Still, I think about all those PCs that roll 9 or 10 dice at these sorts of things. Ho hum, another gem, another nest of writing serpents, 90% chance of success...

And if that's 3, how do you make 5 impressive?

>>52806078
also you. somehow I missed you>>52806197

>>52806078

So a difficulty 1 roll for a hero would be difficulty 3 as a normie?

>>52806350
5 is removing an appendix in the dead of night on a boat during a storm in candle light with MacGyver tools after being up for last three days

>>52806460
Same difficulty number, different perception. If you're rolling 9 dice, you look at that difficulty 3 roll with the same disdain as someone with 4 dice looks at a difficulty 1 roll.

Resist the urge to change difficulties based on who's rolling. Assigning difficulties is the most arbitrary element of the game, and the GM's job is to be fair (or at least appear fair), or the players' decisions become meaningless.

>>52806472
>in the dead of night on a boat during a storm in candle light with MacGyver tools after being up for last three days
I feel like all of these are penalties to the roll rather than increases in difficulty, but the result is the same; only a true master has a chance to succeed.

Are the Getimian Exalted the Chosen of Oramus?

>>52808097
We don't really know enough about them or the Yozis in this edition to say.

>>52777442
>Freelancers should ALWAYS get things down in writing, and never slack on the professional security where possible.

This was like 2 days ago, but what is "professional security"?

Science Fiction And Fantasy Writers of America?

I guess there is Griefcom for future cases.
http://www.sfwa.org/member-links/committees/griefcom/

>>52808097
it sounds more like some office worker decided to smash the printer, steal a bunch of spiders and try to burn the place down because FUCK THIS SOULSUCKING JOB.

>>52808097
it sounds more like some office worker decided to smash the printer, steal a bunch of spiders and try to burn the place down because FUCK THIS SOULSUCKING JOB. I'm an EXALT damnit!

>>52809193
it sounds more like some office worker decided to smash the printer, steal a bunch of spiders and try to burn the place down because FUCK THIS SOULSUCKING JOB. I'm an ELDER nice guy EXALT damnit!

why does everybody talk about witness to darkness as if it were some terrible change to your character's mindset? if anything I'd say nightmare fugue vigilance is worse but people seem to forget any drawback but the nightmares for that.

>>52809181
>>52809193
>>52809218
>It keeps happening!

For whoever's in charge of the Character sheet, bug report:

When making a dragonblood, in the charms section, when you try to add a new charm, it suggests Resistan. for the ability being used, but the options for charms don't show up unless you type in Resistance instead.

>>52809909

It effectively brings one of your stats down to zero? What's the mechanical detriment to the nightmares again? -1 to something in some conditions? WtD had that too.

>>52806350
Part of it is that Exalted works a hell of a lot better if everyone doesn't jam 5s into their areas of competence.

>>52810155

Pity the game incentivizes buying as many 5s at chargen as they possibly can.

>>52810155
Shame that means never having any charms past Essence 2 outside of their supernal.

>>52810155

Actually, the point is that you're going to have 5's. The rest of the world isn't. It's to highlight how good you are at stuff.

Also the game simply doesn't work without having a 5 in (relevant Supernal).

So other than Caste abilities did caste actually matter to First Age Solars? I imagine that after living for so long you would have had a chance to learn a lot of charms outside your specialty and train your abilities up.

>>52810413

Yes because you were far more likely to have shit for your caste/favored than anything else. If anything was the real differentiator, it was your favored skills, at least in previous editions.

So if you have a character who is heavily focused around their signature artifact, is it possible to pull off a good "recover the missing artifact" arc?

I think it might work if its relatively short, and the possibility is telegraphed as out there. Not like "while you had a leak the party abyssal chucked it into Oblivion lol"

It'd be interesting to play a Solar who starts off looking their missing artifact, and finds it again just when they acquire enough xp to legitimately buy it outright.

>>52810294
Does it challenge the characters sufficiently if you throw them challenges that can't be directly solved by their 5 supernal areas?

Like: supernal Melee, Stealth, Presence, Lore and Bureacracy - you encounter a species of demon Mermaids, who are highly formalised in ettiquette, live together in huge swarms, but have no basic culture.

You need to stop them luring ships in to the local whirlpools, wat do?

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>>52810875

You only get 1 Supernal per character, man. Also it depends on your group's composition and disposition. And even then, Exalted is usually a game that is pretty open about options when it comes to dealing with things. Anything from straight up murdering them all to building a giant cage to trap their swarms in and then tossing the cage into a volcano to have a giant fish fry to feed a starving nation a few islands over, to talking them down into becoming their air breathing Godking.

>>52810812

You could, because there are only 5 or so Evocations to buy, and you can't Supernal your way to the capstone. If you lose your Artefact within the first few sessions, you'll only have spent XP on a single Evocation, if you're at E5, you'll have spent XP on other charms, and likely have Artefacts to spare.

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>>52810812
>is it possible to pull off a good "recover the missing artifact" arc?

If you're based around an entire thing, chances are it's going to suck if that thing goes missing. Basically it's like taking the legs off a character and telling them to go run a marathon. They could do it, maybe, but it probably won't be much fun unless they're a masochist.

In 2.5 speed and rate don't matter for how often a weapon can be used to parry right?

>>52809958
it makes your character not quite able to tell if this is even real life, all the time.

no mechanical effect, but a pretty big one in character

>>52809927
fate got all screwed up. damnit toby, why you gotta be such a tool!

>>52763481
Is there a DB book yet?

>>52811225
no. the only thing out is core

Using A Clutch of Dragons, how much XP would you alot if you were to try and reproduce a 140XP Ex2.5 DB?

I'm asking in case anyone's got the easy answer. I expect it's not going to be that simple...

>>52811300
just build it and see how close you can get. or do you mean in general?

>>52810875
> You need to stop them luring ships in to the local whirlpools, wat do?
> Supernal melee

>>52810875
>Melee
>Presence

Pretty sure those ones got it

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So, what Charms do you get if you want to do Sorcerous Workings really fast?

>>52811704

The only charm there seems to be is Six Eternities Travail from the Backer charms. After that, you're looking for Evocations.

>>52810875
>highly formalised in ettiquette
>have no basic culture
wat

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>>52795244
Played a Lunar in a mixed group game twice now. No problems. Amusingly, both times the Lunar ended up being the strongest fighter through no real effort on my part.

The first time game the Lunar in question was an itinerant monk who never used DBT. But his four mastered martial arts were enough to assure he was virtually unbeatable. Art of Meditative Discussion, Black Claw, Crane Style, and White Reaper. And I suppose Lunar Hero if that counts.

He mostly fought with the Art of Meditative Discussion because Instruction In Self is the single best Style Form in the game outside of SMAs, but situationally swapped to Black Claw (especially in animal form) and White Reaper (when leading troops).

The second one was a weird result of an Exalted Fate hack where his 6 Physique meant he could hurl boulders at people with relative ease.

Don't be afraid to play in a mixed group. It's silly to get caught up on the idea that Solars have to be better. If they could do it all, they'd have no need for a group.

>>52812167
Did the first game HAVE any seriously combat-focused Solars?

>>52812202

It honestly doesn't sound like they did.

>>52812231
If he was playing 2.5e then I could see how a Lunar could be on a fairly equal footing to a combat-focused Solar, admittedly. Soak and regen were godly in that version of the rules.

The Ask the Devs thread seems to have steadily gone downhill in terms of quality of questions since it was made.

>>52814149
That's to be expected, all the important and actually useful questions have largely been asked, so what's left is just dross and random thoughts. We'll probably see more meaningful questions once more shit gets previewed.

Are all demons Creatures of Darkness?

>>52814368
Yes. "Creature of Darkness" is only a moral judgement in a very broad-strokes and formalized way. It's much more of a political declaration. So yes, even if you have a demon who isn't a jackass, they're still a CoD.

>>52814490
Thank you friend! No slave Neomah whore for me, I guess.

>>52815194
Why not?

>>52814490
Five Days Darkness, God of Calibration is a good example. He's the shadow of the Unconquered Sun, so he's a Creature of Darkness by definition rather than by virtue of anything he or anyone associated with him has ever done. I'm not sure he's ever been given a proper personality.

Not to be confused with The Ebon Dragon, who is a more conventional dark deity figure.

>>52815979
I thought Five Days Darkness was a behemoth not a god. Hes just an unkillable magical being made from the first shadow the unconquered sun cast.

>>52812167
You could reduce that to White Reaper and Celestial Crane and still be more mostly unbeatable. Crane was a huge defensiveplus and White Reaper granted you enormous damage, especially against groups.
Also Crowned Sun Form. Hail to the King of Martial Arts.

>>52812046
That works if they are pretty much emotionless robots, they'd have what we'd perceive as ettiquette in order to interact at all.

>>52816191
Nah he's a god
Shadow of the Unconquered Sun, and a pretty nice guy all around.

>>52815370
His dick must be coated in Holy

>>52815979
>I'm not sure he's ever been given a proper personality.

He was. He's a pretty cool guy.

>>52782807
John's said before now that it was 'future proofing' partially to stop them ripping off Abyssals but he also indicated there was an antagonist group who'd actually be vulnerable to it.

>>52784964
been there, done that
was a Dawn Caste so my initiative reset higher than when I started

>>52814149
yeah a lot of people don't really want to ask the developers things, they want to browbeat them into giving major spoilers and/or designing the game to their specifications

>>52817426
Basically.

Do shadowlands HAVE to formed by areas of great battle and sorrow?

Like, I'd want to see a Dia De Muertos style shadowland that started when a First Age Solar wanted to create the best party, and it don't stop if you've kicked the bucket or no.

>>52819428

IIRC, all it requires is death on a massive scale. So that's technically possible, but life affirming acts inhibit it.

>>52810875
let the dawn eat them. presence guy fucks them into doing what he says, bureacracy builds them a culture out of paperwork, lore figures out what their deal is and from there it's much easier figuring out how to get them to stop. stealth just does sneaky stuff from the shadows where nobody notices.

sounds like all of those solars can solve this except maybe the sneakthief(and even he can just go dawn solution, slitting thier throats one by one while they all go "guess it was just the wind").

>>52816951
except when he'd snack on a family during calibration in 1e for...some reason

>>52819428
Just have it be a shadowland born from a massacre during a celebration. The dead then decided that fuck it, a bit of death wasn't going to stop them from finishing their celebration.

New thread when?

>>52820594

When you create it.