The whole damn world's gone down the toilet, which means all my artifacts and jade is worthless now.
My entire class of Exalts is so weak in comparison to the rest that our only point is as a benchmarking utility for the latest monster to one-shot off screen, we don't get Supernal skills, artifacts are still dime a dozen in 3rd, and to top things off, I'm a fire aspect. What the hell's the point in being playable?
Low power games.
Because if YOU'RE playing a Terrestrial, then so is the rest of the party, and the GM is designing encounters for a party of Terrestrials.
Mixed parties have ALWAYS been a terrible fucking idea in Exalted, and people who attempt them are retards.
Plus the rulebook even says to avoid mixed parties.
>Exalted
>Not playing Dragon Kings
>Not taking back the surface for the Dinosaur Empire!
Emperor Gore would be ashamed.
It's always been a terrible idea. In literally every White Wolf game with multiple splats.
>My entire class of Exalts is so weak in comparison to the rest
1) You can literally do Solar-level sorcery now.
2) Go look at Martial Arts. The difference between a Mastery-level user and a Terrestrial-level user of the same Style is not too significant.
3) Excellencies are not Scenelong Charms anymore, so your lower dice cap is incredibly irrelevant; in all the cases where you'd blow 10 whole motes on an Excellency, you'd probably blow 10 motes and 1 willpower, meaning the DB Excellency is functionally Solar-tier.
>we don't get Supernal skills,
So? Neither do Infernals, I'll wager.
> artifacts are still dime a dozen in 3rd,
That is literally the opposite of the case; people bitched INCESSANTLY about that not being the case. If you want artifacts to be a "dime a dozen," go look at 2e for a bit.
Nevermind that DBs can wield Solar-tier Evocations.
See this absolute joke of a human being? He can (barely) resist 300 times Earth's gravity without dying. And not because he's some alien from a planet where babies shoot planetbusting lasers from their dicks, but because he did his squats and ate his oats. Every human could be a Yamcha. I know that sounds pathetic, until you realize Yamcha is stronger than every soldier in Frieza's army except maybe the Ginyu Force. That's right, Yamcha could tear through Frieza's entire empire up until he hits the elites of the elites.
So get to doing your deadlifts and maybe, just maybe, terrestrials will stop being the laughing stock of the universe.
And Yamcha isn't even oeak buman in DBZ.
Krillin is stronger than him, and is 100% human. He just keeps trying to help instead of totally bitching out of everything like Yamcha does after he gets ball'd back. So Krillin gets his ass beat more times than Yamcha in Z just because he has the sheer testicular fortitude to keep getting back up and coming back for more. Little nigga's like, Bald Anime Mick Foley.
And Tien is also technically human (though the third eye is never explained), and he managed to keep mother fucking CELL busy for a solid four minutes of screentime. He almost died doing it, but still. Second strongest DBZ big bad (albeit not in his strongest form), and Tien held him off for a whole four minutes.
Better get to work on your shrugs, boys.
>What the hell's the point in being playable?
So they have more shit to write about, package up, and ship off to people so obsessed with the Exalted universe they'll just buy it even if their chances of actually getting around to playing it are basically nil.
Dragonblood have always sucked in Exalted, which is disappointing. I get the in setting reason for them being weaker, but all that means IMO is that the base level for a PC Dragonblood in a mixed group should be a veteran who can stand toe to toe with other standard PC's. Anything else is bad design.
Flesh out the low end, for enemies or people who really want to play out the 'weaker' thing, but there's no reason not to ensure that they're compatible with other Exalts from a gameplay perspective.
user, Exalted was never desogned for, and explicitly recommends AGAINST, mixed parties.
This "criticism" is like criticizing a BMW Z3 roadster for not being able to take your four kids to soccer practice, or carry timber to a job site. It was never designed to do that.
In a world full of difficult to sympathize with demi-gods/minor-gods, you're the class of Exalt that can still be considered near-mortal, or humanish. You've got the power of heart, baby, and that's something to envy: to appeal to the common man.
You're still better than humans.
And really, you were meant to be cannon fodder for the Solar Exalts to lead into battle. It's the will of the Gods that you're second best.
Also, you're suitable love interests and waifus since there aren't that many Celestial Exalted around, and some of them are terrifying.
This would make sense if the Dragonblooded were not COMPLETE ASSHOLES. Seriously, the Immaculate Order is fucked.
The Immaculate Order is legitimately the strongest moral agent in the setting, when it comes to Exalts.
"You are responsible for anything you order your underlings to do, as though you had personally done it--and your underlings are off the hook" is practically Zen Buddhism compared to how most Exalts (including and especially PCs) run their shitshow empires.
Technically the returned Solars have more connection to humanity (Since they're younger and more in touch with those around them) than the Dragon-blooded do, given that the latter are raised in an enforced system that tells them "You're great!".
Other than the whole explicitly lying through their teeth about how the world works, sure.
But if you ignore everything bad that a group does, of course they look good.
The things they lie about are irrelevancies when determining the moral value of the institution.
"They lie about how death works" So does every IRL religion, big whoop.
All the tenets and teachings of the Immaculate Philosophy are, from an outside perspective, really nice for the relative time of Exalted. Hell, there's a whole order of monks who's whole job is to travel around fixing up farmland and cleaning battlefields so people in the threshold don't have to worry about starvation post-war. And the philosophy has a whole series of guidelines meant to curb the elemental emotional troubles each aspect of DB faces. It's just that 2E likes to only talk about the complete assholes who grow up to be pathetic wastes of space and exaltation, or vicious assholes, or etc. And don't get me wrong, there's plenty of interesting narrative room to the awful people a super soldier breeding nation creates, but it just painted the realm as a shit hole when the idea of tearing down the realm should be shades of grey instead of black and white good or bad
They're self-serving and full of shit, though. I mean, they're objective wrong. Like, they're shamelessly lying for their own benefit. The truth is harsh, but it's still the truth.
They're complete asshats.
The Realm IS going to be torn down. When the Solar Exalted really get into gear, the Dragon-blooded are doomed. It's very likely that the outcome will be genocide.
>Like, they're shamelessly lying for their own benefit.
No, they aren't. They were a few thousand years ago when the Sidereals made up the Immaculate Philosophy, but next to one in the Realm actually knows that the Immaculate Philosophy isn't true and the few who do know are probably as worried about someone above them killing them for talking as they are eager to maintain the hegemony of Dragon-Blooded power.
Oh come on, stop bitching and-
>and to top things off, I'm a fire aspect.
wow. that's... rough, bro. Need a hug? No homo.