/exg/ - Exalted general: shit game edition

>how else would you explain all of his weapons?
Elsewhere storage is a normal Solar charm.

The dev hate is sometimes based on them making bad design decisions, not just lying or being, what, 2 years late on the delivery or whatever.

And quite a lot of the 3e hate is criticism of the actual game itself.

Holden sounds like such an obnoxious, stupid, american stoner, I wasn't expecting that.

War

Use command actions to order around your swarm of agatae whilst you ride around on your own charm-boosted one.

Woops, that one is Morke, my bad.

>2 years late on the delivery or whatever.

Due to making many contradictory promises, assertions, suggestions, and implicit statements about actual, expected and/or probable release date, their delivery exists in a quantum superposition of simultaneously being 1,2,3,4 years late and on time.

The devs are intimately involved in 3e in a way that devs normally aren't with other games, AFAIK.

I couldn't tell you the name of a single dev for any of the recent editions of D&D, nor the errata writers, nor various other representatives. (I tried looking one up just now for an example and found that 4e corebook is credited to "Wizards RPG Team" on Amazon, no names at all.)

With Exalted, on the other hand, it feels like half the line has been done by about five or so people: Holden, Morke, Minton, Borgstrom, Vance. There's probably more, but it's hard to see past them being BIG NAMES with BIG EGOS that insert themselves into everything and identify with their work to the extent that Morke's Twitter starts with "developer for EXALTED" (caps in original) and his pinned tweet is requests for Patreon donations, with his Patreon page starting with... yeah, Exalted again.

Sometimes this is a good thing, when you can ask the devs questions and they run preview events and they engage with the community and they explain intent and provide bonus material that was cut from the corebook for space reasons.
But the flipside of that is when the devs fuck up, it reflects on the game.

Maybe that's just the difference between a niche game and DnD. A better comparison would be something like Chuubo or Pugmire , which also also extremely linked to the dev.

>There's probably more

S.L. Sheppard, but he didn't do mechanics, just fluff.

I have a question on how battlegroups work. When they make withering attacks and crash someone, is "spillover" initiative damage supposed to become health damage on the same attack? Because both ways of doing it seem kinda messed up.

If spillover disappears, battlegroups seem weirdly weak. In particular, it seems an Accuracy focused glass cannon (or even glass popgun!) could solo one, disregarding other stats for a moment: Deadeye Dave thwacks the battlegroup for init and magnitude damage, battlegroup crashes Dave's init, Dave thwacks battlegroup for init and magnitude damage, battlegroup crashes Dave's init, repeat as only one side takes any damage. (This is how I ran it in a recent game. It felt unsatisfactory.)

If their spillover withering converts to health damage, OTOH, the fight seems like it would get one-sided fast since you only get 1pt initiative from hitting a battlegroup.

Remember that crashing isn't just stopping at 0; if the BG sends you to -5 init with one attack, you aren't going to be able to recover that before their next swing, this time for real HLs.

Addendum: I mean you could, but if you did, that means you swung 5 times, which almost certainly means you've fucked up the BG pretty good anyway.

This.

A thing to keep in mind though is that since battle groups take magnitude damage from withering attacks, a Crashed opponent is still capable of directly hurting them back, unlike with a single worthy opponent.

Does anyone have a good gif or video to portray the withering/decisive ebb and flow combat system?

Basically any fight from Hero / Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon/etc.

Maybe something a bit less wuxia with the floating a jumps, that would distract them from the actual withering part.

The final boss battle of MGS4?

Any Jackie Chan fight vs. a gang.

That's pretty good.

Max out your willpower, and Burning Raptor will be doing decent damage even off base. Get a couple of willpower-regaining charms, one of the ritual merits that exempts your control spells wp cost, and spam that - or butterflies for AoE.

I've personally found battlegroups to be real easy to kill for our Dawn anyway. They don't get onslaught bonuses, so they can't wear down Defense. Even with the size bonuses to their attack pools, they can't get through a combat focused character's Defense most of the time especially with Excellency boosts. One of my early fights was against a size 3 battlegroup of mortal troops with a commander to rally them and boost their pools. A good Withering attack dropped the leader's Init below the battlegroup's, a second one knocked them down a Size, and they failed the rout check and never had a chance to rally because this was all before their turn.

Battlegroups of 1st Circle Demons have been basically the only thing that's been a serious threat, and even then, they drain motes on Excellency'd Parry rather than cutting through to HL. This *might* be working as intended. It's very cinematic. But it's a bit awkward for me.

>killing something is easy for a Dawn
Big surprise. They're a Dawn.

I did say it might be working as intended. But it's a bit odd to me that 10 blood apes are substantially easier to kill than 1 blood ape.

When the character has been fighting groups of blood apes alone, a single blood ape is a trivial opponent, and trivial opponents die when crashed IIRC.

Hrrrrm. Point. Awkward point. Now I can't have, for example, an evil sorcerer dramatically flanked by two blood ape bodyguards; he needs a whole army of them. Which is probably much more sensible for anyone going up against a Solar circle, but means all the big fights have to be outdoors.

>all the big fights have to be outdoors.
Hell no. Have them go up against a seemingly endless horde of demons in tight quarters.

The sorcerer could also summon Second or Third Circle demons as lone bodyguards if he's important/powerful enough. If you want them to be identical, just make up a 2CD that's one demon in two bodies, or something.

It's a trivial opponent for the dawn caste. Not for the rest of the circle.
Or they could be special, boosted blood apes.
Or you could admit to the group that "Shit i messed up"

That's not really how it works.

It's true that certain foes can be declared trivial opponents based purely on power disparity, but it's more sensitive to context. It's not like once you beat a Brides of Ahlat battlegroup, then therefore all future heroic mortals are declared trivial opponents permanently.

If 2 bodyguard blood apes as individuals makes for a better fight, do that. If they aren't but punk shit, then they're trivial.

>heroic mortals
Bad analogy, heroic mortals are never trivial, because they are heroic and therefore important.

So blood apes can be trivial, but mortals can't?

Heroic mortals != mortals in general.

> (You)
>>all the big fights have to be outdoors.
>Hell no. Have them go up against a seemingly endless horde of demons in tight quarters.
I definitely like this idea. Lots of potential for good stunts and dramatic action. Thank you.
> (You)
>Or you could admit to the group that "Shit i messed up"
Haven't messed up yet. They beat the demons fair and square. Just planning ahead.

If I need bodyguards for someone who shouldn't have access to Celestial sorcery I think I'll write up some 3rd Ed stats for Tomescu. They seem like the kind of demons that would have some individuals that are particularly skilled combatants. Heroic demons, as it were.

Yeah but if the Dawn can casually destroy blood apes then I'd assume he can casually destroy a mortal, heroic or not. So why can't they be trivial?

Because heroic = important, given "screen time" exposition, etc.
Heroicness makes you special. Sure, your Dawn will kill the guy in a turn or two, but they won't go down without at least trying to put up a fight, saying some famous last words or whatever.

Trivial opponents you just slash and forget.

Think 'Narrative Weight' rather than sheer competence.

Like Ned Stark being less of a swordsman than the three Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy. The Kingsguard were better swordsmen, but their deaths were hardly mentioned.

Dayne was still significant, especially the way depicted in the show.

It's kind of fun to listen to this and randomly chime in with angry counter-questions to what they say based on the common complaints.

Are you talking to your screen? Post those replies here instead of being a crazy person.

Fine.

Holden/Morke talk about how realism in the ways societies work is important to the setting, but then the greatest naval power in the world uses triremes.

They talk about how they never looked at other systems during design, which I guess explains why they still have fucking linear chargen/quadratic advancement.

Morke doesn't understand what balance is. He says, "each ability is supposed to feel different," and explains to an extent how, which is great. Then he says "they were never balanced against each other" because "I never said this ability's charmset needs so much damage per round." That isn't necessary for balance. Starcraft is an exquisitely balanced game, but the races all play very differently from one another and no two units are really fungible at all, even ones performing similar roles (e.g. zerglings versus zealots). In general, they seem to confuse "balanced" for "interchangeable."

I feel like there was another thing I was annoyed about but can't remember what it was.

Thanks, that's much more interesting stuff to discuss.
Also I like this interview for at least giving an insight into their intentions, even if we have solid evidence of failure to accomplish some of them.

>I feel like there was another thing I was annoyed about but can't remember what it was.
Oh, now I remember. They talked about how they wanted to make crunchy, meaningful subsystems for players to interact with, which had relevant and thematically fitting texture which helped produce appropriate and interesting stories, for basically every ability. So you have the Lore subsystem, you have the social subsystem, etc.

But Bureaucracy still doesn't do anything. Honestly, the way they talked about it confused me and made me think maybe they added it back in between the leak and the final pdf, which they obviously didn't.

Yeah, that one really stuck out to me, like I get they added a lot of functional subsystems for things, but how can they legitimately believe the Projects system was good enough to release?
Exalted, more than most RPGs, really needs a system to tie in with Bureaucracy to easily represent the state and actions taken by an organisation or nation.

I never really cared about "balance" between abilities and charmsets. They each have invaluable pros and cons beyond just DPS or defensibility, like not needing weapons, or being (un)able to use the weapons your character has available, being discreet, having range, tactical options, etc.

Now, actually broken systems are a different matter.

But it's painfully clear that they have no idea what they're talking about either way.

I'm a third person confused by the discussion of Bureaucracy. Unlike you faggots I don't really have a horse in the race to hate them, but I was really confused by that part because insofar as I can tell there aren't really any systems for bureaucracy.

>They each have invaluable pros and cons beyond just DPS or defensibility, like not needing weapons, or being (un)able to use the weapons your character has available, being discreet, having range, tactical options, etc.
This is balance, user. All of the things you mention are something that could and should make the various Abilities balanced.

That's them being varied and distinct abilities, it's a part of well-balanced and fun things, but it doesn't require them be balanced.

You cannot balance them, as they are invaluable and uncomparable, as well as stemming from the qualities of real life weapons.

If you bring a knife to a spear fight (all combatants being equal), you expect to be stabbed without ever getting in range of your opponent, that's common sense. Do you then say spears are imbalanced? Of course not.

>You cannot balance them, as they are invaluable and uncomparable
Hello, Morke.

When you reach the level where you say, "hmm, these two advantages can't be cleanly compared. Both are sometimes relevant and sometimes irrelevant, but you can't quantify how often that will be, and it really could go either way, depending," then guess what? You have two balanced options.

Not knowing how likely each is gonna be useful or a hindrance, is not the same as them being equally useful. When they're roughly equal in use, that's balance. When people are balancing apples and oranges mechanics, they can still test the relative strength of them in practice and tweak it while still retaining distinct pros and cons to both, and situations where each one is useful.

>Not knowing how likely each is gonna be useful or a hindrance, is not the same as them being equally useful. When they're roughly equal in use, that's balance.
Oh, hmm. I was just sort of assuming we were talking about either advantages that literally can't be compared (can be hidden on one's person versus can't but X), or advantages that were comparable in severity.

Assuming I understand you correctly, I agree; if A and B come up maybe similar amounts of the time but when A comes up it's a huge advantage and when B comes up it's marginal, that's not balanced.

Oh yeah, I understand, if they were definitely similar in usefulness but for different situations, that would totally count.

It's fine to design based on how a charmset feels in a vacuum, focusing on how it feels to people dedicated to that ability, and how good it is at allowing them to pull off thematic feats suited to it.
But for skills which actually interact with each other in this game, you need them to be at least roughly balanced. Craft is mostly its own thing, so you only tweak that based on expected output quality and rate. Awareness needs to be balanced against Stealth, and Larceny needs to be balanced against Investigation, Sail has to be balanced with itself plus expected output like Craft.
The combat abilities are the most important, because it would seriously ruin someone playing a powerful archer, if they discover they're useless and close range fighters are gonna charge and kill them right away.
You need to retain the feel of Brawl, while making it a reasonable opponent to Melee. They can be different in kind and have a lot of situational effects which are hard to compare, but they have to at least be within the same power level or it'll sour player's choices for their character concepts.

Balance can be done at a more abstract level than just calculating damage-per-round. Obviously, balancing Bureaucracy and Melee would never work that way.

What you want to balance, is the cost-benefit for investing in an ability. The charms need to represent a roughly approximate level of in-setting power, at a given point in the tree.

Like, putting, for instance, Eye of the Unconquered Sun, as an E1 zero-prereqs charm would be unbalanced. Not because it had more DPR than Iron Whirlwind, but because it's a really powerful effect, for a really minimal buy in.

A balanced system should mean that someone who's bought heavily in Melee, and someone who's bought heavily into Socialize should both feel like their choices were valid, and have useful and interesting ways of interacting with the system.

I think Ex3 mostly succeeds with this, with some outliers. Bureaucracy, as noted, doesn't have a subsystem to interact with, and Sorcery is a powerful effect with such a low buy-in that the only reason you wouldn't take it is thematics. There's also Sail, but it's explicitly called out in the text as a niche ability, so at least it has warnings. I also think Investigation is boring (it basically caps out at Judge's Ear/Ten Magistrate Eyes), and the bridge keyword makes Integrity too much of an auto-buy sometimes.

question:taumaturgy: its in oldmcdonald, its got a few in core, scroll of the monk, and celestial directions:the wyld

...anywhere else?

unless you want to homebrew literally everything into being functional before you play the fluff needs crunch

There's a few in the three Glories books, IIRC.

thanks

>That pic

Man, Lunars are nuts.

>Man, Lunars are nuts.

You could say they're "lunatics."

You smug anime girls and your damn infernal puns.

>In 3rd ed can NPCs stunt or are they just always behind the players by 2 dice/ 1 defense?
I generally give sufficiently badass NPCs a 1-point stunt for every action, or at least every action that falls within their area of expertise. No higher rated stunts for NPCs, though.

I bet it's all that moonspeak!

>Lunars are basically anime characters

They just want senpai to notice them.

Good caul, I can tell.

They're so obsessed with Solars, they turn into small creatures so you can tote 'em around.
I think it's Solars that really want sunpai to notice them.

To be fair, folk play them wyldly differently, and the bond is optional now.

>To be fair, folk play them wyldly differently, and the bond is optional now.

>Unironically playing a Lunar/Solar without a bond

But... Why? The Lunar/Solar relationship is extremely useful (not to mention fun to RP) and shores up whatever weaknesses your character has.

I don't play that shit, I'm only in this for the puns.
Mnemon with Sorcery is just for your magical Realm.

Because, user, the bond being useful and sometimes fun to RP does not mean it fits every character concept.

>But... Why? The Lunar/Solar relationship is extremely useful (not to mention fun to RP) and shores up whatever weaknesses your character has.
You can have a Solar with a Lunar wife without the Lunar Bond, just as you can have a Solar with a Dragon-Blooded or mortal wife without a Dragon-Blooded or Mortal Bond.

The Lunar Bond has a lot of inextricable baggage attached to it; unconditional love is a breeding ground for abuse, callousness, and cruelty. It historically has been treated very sketchily by the line. The moral dilemmas it suggests generally slide off players like water off a baby duck's back.

You're probably right, I guess I was getting a little close-minded with assuming *every* character should fit into a certain concept.

Yeah, Solar players could have a Lunar bond in their backstory, or the GM could introduce it with at least a little consent from the player.
But for Lunar players, it really has to be their decision, they'd be subservient, obsessed or psychopathic, which fits some concepts, but really limits your options.
They're also probably keeping it for the Lunar book because they haven't decided the specifics yet.

BABY ducks aren't naturally water repellent, their feathers have to come in first and then the oils

Thank you for the correction.

or they could be your buddy.

whos a good lunar? whoos a good lunar? smbc-comics.com/comics/20131204.png

who's a good lunar

Why didn't you do this Your decision to link it is bewildering to me. It actually distracted me from reading the text in the comic.

I am not a good doggy, for in the time efore now, I was in a state of nature. I obeyed such laws as nature mandates, and now my obeisance is loathsome to me: a nightmare inflicted by my body and retained in my memory. Oh memory! You are a palimpest, where I have written good upon evil again and again and again, ah! But how ink fades. For blood cannot be covered by ink. Ink was used in times of ease. When scarcity returns, perhaps blood will follow. No, I am not a good doggy. That can never be. But, in the present, perhaps I can be a just doggy. And in that, there is some solace.

...that only raises /further/ questions!

youtube.com/watch?v=GbycvPwr1Wg

youtube.com/watch?v=s4GPG4eNNEk

I played a Lunar in a game a while back. Banged a Solar, who was not my bondmate, and I was the senior in the relationship.

(Also banged several other people offscreen and never told the Solar, because that's just the way I roll.)

(Also murdered several of those people after banging them.)

(Actually, I suppose the banging may have been rape in some of those cases.)

(This sort of thing is probably why people overthrew the First Age Solars.)

(Good thing I'm a shapeshifter and nobody can track me down or identify me well enough to even pinpoint me for possible overthrowing.)

>(Good thing I'm a shapeshifter and nobody can track me down or identify me well enough to even pinpoint me for possible overthrowing.)

You don't have problems with the Sidereals, then?

would you let one of your players craft dreamstones or eggs of holding? if so how?

I never did for the duration that game ran, probably because I wasn't murdering or impersonating anyone important enough. I suppose if such problems ever had cropped up, I could have gotten Flickering Star Infusion to steal people's destinies and astrologies along with their shapes.

If you got to choose, who would you pick to be your Lunar mate, and why would it be Ma-Ha-Suchi?

source for the quote saying liminals and getemians don't get their own splatbooks?

Are there any references in the old books to a photosynthesis ability?

wood adaptation mutants iirc.

big-metto.net/RP_Wiki/index.php?title=Exalted/Mutations

the wyld 147

Current game: haha, I'm the ST.
Most recent game: myself, between Twin-Faced Hero and Starfish Doppelganger Knack.
Planned next game: Ma-Ha-Suchi actually sounds a good bet, since AFAIK everyone older is also even crazier or completely inaccessible. MHS might be the best pick in terms of powerful patron who isn't nuttier than a fruitcake.

Here you go.

>If you got to choose, who would you pick to be your Lunar mate, and why would it be Ma-Ha-Suchi?

Probably a No Moon Lunar with the body of Ahri and personality of Ran.

So, Morke answered some questions on twitter on DBs. Thought so far?