Is Exalted 3e any good? I didn't realize it had actually happened since it's not a conventional game store release...

My gaming style has shifted during my hiatus, so I wonder how I would handle the game these days...

Because during this time I've basically made my own system that is hard mirror for Exalted 3, doing almost everything exactly the opposite way, yet giving a chance to play similarly powered characters. Hell, if charms weren't so hardcoded into Exalted's world, I could run Exalted with it.

The point about other costs than just health to make combat difficult will become more of a thing after the current campaign.

Currently they're just fucking about against a Deathlord, trying to collect elusive pieces of Autocthon that are the cause for his sickness and dying state (In my game at least). The next session the rest of the group would fight against one of the PC:s that has gone insane due to their mentor dying.

After that a new PC would be introduced and they would try to go get the final piece, that said Deathlord of course has in possession. They already killed all the Deathlord's lackeys so while still a deathlord (and thus a force to be reckoned with), if they manage to snatch the pieces, they will get something to fuck him up for good from Autocthon.

But yeah, after that would be over (It would take somewhere around 2-3 game sessions to get there), I will start a huge civil war for the throne between DB:s. The whole game would shift gears from that point on, from adventure to them trying to hold their own in this sweeping war.

>Sounds like how Exalted has always been
it's not, or at least it's basically the opposite

EX3 combat does make fun, both for the players and for the storyteller. The Withering/Decisive split is great.

You just have to use interesting enemies with strengths and weaknesses to give Solar PCs some kind of difficulty.

Than again, my newest group nearly was killed by fucking wolves in their first session, while ending the final fight with the BBEG within 5 minutes, so who am I to say something about Exalted balancing.

>Also 20 dice is pretty normal if someone throws an excellency at something they are good at
which is the reason new characters from my players are limited in their Dex+Combat Ability to be at most a dicepool of 8, reducing the maximum dice pool to 16.
Does not seem like a lot of reduction, but it's often the difference between auto-attacking any possible enemy to death and having to use tactics to overcome possibly high soak/DV

Well yeah, reducing the maximum that can be got from excellency, if they happen to burst all on that, or get full excellency from a charm. But it's much easier to boost attacks with charms.

Probably the hardest encounter my party ever had was a pair of demons, one of which was an invisible spellcaster. In addition, they were in a room where they couldn't approach the other one, and it kept hitting them with ranged attacks, but the party's ranged attacks didn't work.

Our team's brains decides to use a spell to puzzle the invisible enemy (I refluffed a spell from the older magic books) and the party just ganked that one.

Then there was this undead army and a lich-type caster that cast a bubble so the PC:s couldn't exit the area.

So yeah, if I make combat these days, I try to make it... Challenging in other ways than opponents simply being tough.

As said, my players love my game and they want more, I just struggle with the system because it's against everything I stand for. I kind of expected it to be a little difficult, but nowhere near this difficult.

Yeah, I counted the amount of custom evocations I've done. Currently it's 55-60. And they're not just effects. No no. Here's an example from the upcoming character. He really wanted to make a defensive-type character and this is one of the evocations that really hammer that in.

Wings of a Dragonfly Technique
Cost: 4m per round Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple
Keywords: Withering-only, Innate
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite: Butterfly Dance
The movements of the butterfly become still, like a dragonfly over water. The shadows and afterimages that follow the menacingly still wielder give away the nature of them. Their movements are so fast that the eye cannot follow. Anything struck into the vicinity of the wielder gets retaliated with a devastating attack of the wielder’s own. In addition of the effects of Butterfly Dance, successful defence at close range grants an automatic free attack to the wielder. This attack is treated as a normal attack and can be enhanced by Charms. This attack does not count as the wielder’s own turn action.

This isn't even from the long end of evocations.

But yeah, what said, I could ask the players for the evocations. But the problem is that they have a very poor grasp of the mechanics, so maybe only for the fluff part.

The rules got worse. It's a needlessly crunchy game. New players may get excited by the premise of being an epic mythic hero from the beginning, but chargen will scare them away. They really should have made it a bit more narrative with charms that are much more freeform and much fewer in number, because fewer people than ever are interested in playing to begin with and they have less effort to invest in a fan remake of a dead game.

It's worse now? Jesus, I thought one of the aims of a new Exalted edition would be to simplify things at least a little bit. It's an awesome setting but it's too bad it's such a cluster fuck to play let alone run.

No, he rules did no get worse. Whether they got better is a matter of opinion, I guess, but they certainly didn't get worse.

>New players may get excited by the premise of being an epic mythic hero from the beginning, but chargen will scare them away.
Depends on the players. I have introduced new players to 3E, and chargen didn't scare them away.

>Need a fucking thesis to understand the god-damn setting or a long ass time to learn E V E R Y T H I N G
>Now gotta learn even more mechanics on top of that
I just wanted to be a Green Sun Prince, no one told me there'd be a test.

Why are you writing the Evocations yourself in the first place, ya goof? That's the player's job, you just approve of them.

>a needlessly crunchy game
I see this criticism a lot, and it is always wrong. It's not the game for you. Some people like crunch in their games. Exalted was never meant to be a fluffy, rules-light game. There are other games for that.

The people who complain about the crunch aren't just picking up a game that's known to be rules heavy and complaining about it. I think people are attracted to the setting but are a bit overwhelmed. It's not as simple as picking up another game if you want to play in the Exalted world.

If you had any issues with 2E's problems like Paranoia Combat, PCs getting splattered by a lucky hit with a grand goremaul, perfect defense spam, combat that drags on and on, that's all been addressed very well by 3E.

If you're expecting Exalted to be rules light or something now though, you're out of luck. There are still quite a few rules, but the rules work very well now and don't require direct GM intervention to function as intended.

I mean, it's not like people haven't made Fate knockoffs or Godbound. I still prefer 3E, but it's not like people have no viable alternatives now!

Fate is never really a viable alternative and my impression was that response to Godbound has been overwhelmingly negative.

Aside from people getting shut down in the Exalted thread when people try to use it to edition war, not really?

I mean, I enjoy both things.

If you're going Melee and you're not using two identical weapons for the clash bonus, is having weapons a different as possible the best set-up? Also, what's the best way to deal with enemies of Legendary Size?

Really? My impression is that Godbound has been mostly received very positively. I wouldn't consider it a good lternative to Exalted, however, and I don't really think Ex3 requires an alternative, either.

For enemies of Legendary Size? I suppose heavy weapons. They don't have much defense to speak of, so accuracy is not nearly as important as exceeding 10 dice post-soak minimum.

Having two weapons be as different as possible is ideal if you don't want to get the same bonus. You can probably use a high accuracy weapon for attacking and a high defense weapon for parrying.

>You can probably use a high accuracy weapon for attacking and a high defense weapon for parrying.

I was think of a light weapon + shield combo for that reason.

You legionnaire now

What's funny is that I was thinking of adding a spear as well for some ranged capabilities, which Legionnaires also had. On that note, I still find the Dawn caste abilities a little restricting due to multiple offensive and defensive abilities, so which goes better with Melee; Archery or Thrown?

Thrown, because it doesn't go to shit as soon as you're in melee range with an enemy.

It's a great game but designed by people who enjoy mechanical engagement and the original format of the game. I think it's the best iteration so far, I just wouldn't use every rule until you're comfortable with it.

Personally, the setting was always what attracted me to the game, and my only concern for the mechanics was whether they represented that. With that in mind, it always seemed to me that Exalted's mechanics could never be perfect, because Exalted is about characters who do all sorts of crazy stuff that you could never have rules for, hence why you had the whole stunt system, and if the price was that the system would have holes or exploits in it then you just had to deal with that and agree with your players that you wouldn't try break the game.

I haven't been able to take part in games for a long time, and don't want to shell out money for 3e just for the pleasure of reading the setting material because I already have basically all the 2e books for that. But, from what I've heard (and I could have gotten the wrong impression), 3e has done some stuff I don't really agree with? Toning down power levels for different character types to be closer to each other, mortals no longer allowed to learn any supernatural martial arts, and what seems like overall some sacrifices from the older editions' fluff in order to serve the mechanics, which as I just said doesn't seem to me to fit what distinguishes Exalted from other games, or make it attractive in comparison to them.

I've also heard the art in the books is shit now.

Like I said, this is just a loose impression I've gotten without really doing the research, so correct me if I'm wrong.

You are aware that there's a link to the e3 book in the OP of the Exalted general when it's up, right?

Yes, and I haven't read it. I just said I haven't been bothered to actually research it, didn't I? I just decided to ask here since this thread seemed an opportunity to get a quick answer.

tl;dr I'm lazy and don't actually care that much.

Toning down the power-level isn't exactly hurting the fluff, really. Because the fluff sure as hell isn't "two combatants perfect each-others attack for several rounds until one is mote-tapped and instantly dies". Perfect defences are now actually a rare thing. Your Solar blocking a huge as fuck death-ray or a collapsing mountain now actually feels awesome and special, rather than "meh, use the same PD I've used against those bandits back there" like in e2.

The difference in power levels remains to be seen, but looking at the martial arts system there is still a difference between Solar/Celestial/Terrestrial. Its just no longer the case that celestials perfect defense spam and terrestrials are worthless. The book doesn't mention 'mortals' learning martial arts, but it does mention that any mortal who learns sorcery or unlocks an essence pool is no longer a mortal. So exceptional people can still learn supernatural things, they're just considered to be supernatural afterwords.

>I've also heard the art in the books is shit now.

Not really. A lot of people complained about the placeholder pieces in the backer version, but the final version is pretty good.

Well, there's hits and there's misses, but I think that goes for pretty much all RPG art. I mean, look through old e2 books and tell me the art there was all good.

>it does mention that any mortal who learns sorcery or unlocks an essence pool is no longer a mortal. So exceptional people can still learn supernatural things, they're just considered to be supernatural afterwords.

That was the case in 2e as well, it's just that the word "mortal" sometimes had two different meanings, one mechanical one relating to what certain effects could do to them (for example, a deathlord having the power to kill any "mortal" by looking at them, which would exclude people with enlightened essence), and which was basically what you just described there, and one more general one that usually meant "non-exalted human" (for example, describing how it was a bad idea for a "mortal sorcerer" to try use demon summoning sorcery because not being Exalted meant the demon wouldn't be bound).

So how have the Lunars faired? Anything significant you guys know of?
(inb4 furfag)

Mechanically, from what I remember, there's not much to go on. There are a couple of Lunars in the Antagonists section with basic combat and social Charms, but nothing really stood out to me as worth mentioning. Their dice cap is (Attribute) now, and you can add a second Attribute to that with an appropriate stunt, so they're pretty versatile.

Fluff-wise it looks like they actually have a role in the setting this time around, being more active in the Threshold and generally bent on tearing down the Realm, but the corebook only has a basic overview of Creation.

But we'll see how this all holds up in future releases, especially once the Lunar book is released in 3019. Anything could change.

Animal forms seem to be very worthwhile now. They all get major bonuses or special abilities depending on whether they're say, a Bear versus a Tiger.

OP here. Glad to see that got fixed! I get that trying to make a really balanced and clean system for characters whose entire shtick is being overpowered for their surroundings in the actual setting fluff is kind of a fool's errand, but the Jon Chung trench warfare with Super Saiyans crap needed to go.

Yeah, there are some areas where 3E is a definite improvement over the previous editions. Social system is another thing worth mentioning. 3E's social system isn't perfect, but it's one of the better ones I've seen in RPGs.

...I'm listening

lol no

>EX3 combat does make fun, both for the players and for the storyteller. The Withering/Decisive split is great.

Hell no, with how wildly Initiative scales up and down and very few attempts at putting any sane caps on damage. A fucking nightmare to run is what it is. Unless you enjoy throwing on enemy at them to gangbang to death before it does anything. Sure I guess that qualifies as 'quick and easy'.

Enjoy your shitty deathspiral mechanics.

>Because the fluff sure as hell isn't "two combatants perfect each-others attack for several rounds until one is mote-tapped and instantly dies".

Nah instead its

>The combat monkey goes first with their enormous Initiative result, punts them into Initiative Crash, then kills them on the following turn

or

>the party bumrushes him and keeps him permanently in Initiative Crash, then wails on his dick with Decisive attacks until he's dead

Very exciting.

>LOl fAG whY areNt you using MULTIPLE CELESTIAL EXALTED and BattlGRoups to fight teh SOlARZ

As if Initiative wasn't already annoying to track with its constant ping-ponging, but now you want me to track an entire party's worth of NPCs as well? nevermind that range bands fall apart as soon as anyone targets something besides a single NPC...

Its just not a good game. Even D&D 5e is a better investment of your time if you want functional combat mechanics that at least work as intended.

>Because the fluff sure as hell isn't "two combatants perfect each-others attack for several rounds until one is mote-tapped and instantly dies"

I don't think I have ever actually seen this in play. Sounds more like the Chung bogeyman to me. I mean if your ST's first response is instant death Combos or mountain top snipers then maybe you shouldn't play with them? Same reason you wouldn't stick around with a DM who's level 1 adventurers ran face first into a Balor and were forced to fight it.

You also know that the 2.5 errata fixed all of this? i'd rather play 2e for now, at least it has material for lots of other stuff to use and over a decade of house rules development to draw fixes from. At least until ex3 has more books out or its own extensive errata or a .5 edition.

Godbound is OSR with some Exalted trappings thrown on top. Its good.. if you like OSR and can overlook its flaws.

The art is extremely shit and a fair amount of it was stolen or copied from other products.

>Fluff-wise it looks like they actually have a role in the setting this time around, being more active in the Threshold and generally bent on tearing down the Realm, but the corebook only has a basic overview of Creation.

Actually they went at lengths to make them something besides 'rar barbarians! destroy the realm (civilization)!' like they were in 1e. The Thousand Streams is pretty cool and resulted in some of the biggest and most successful civilizations outside of the Realm proper.

Its also kind of cool if you look at it from the lens that Lunars aren't worried about the interior of Creaiton, and are instead trying to fortify the edges against another Balorian Crusade or other invasion (after all, they are the Stewards and protectors are a huge part of their theme) but that is my personal fanon, take from it what you will.

Like, in my mind, the idea with withering damage and decisive damage isn't bad. It's a pretty good alternative to make HP make sense.

I just think that Exalted is kind of the wrong game to put it in, and it was implemented poorly. While fluff-wise, the system is pitch-perfect to the setting, game-wise? A complicated health system in a game that's already very complicated? Euuughhh.

In my 15 game sessions, I've felt them all. Actually, I've even used multiple celestial exalted (Essence 3 Abyssals), but because I didn't bother making full charm lists for them (because there was like, 4 of them), they got absolutely annihilated.

What do you call the greater elemental dragon who has slept with your wife.

The Cuckla.

>I didn't bother making full charm lists for them (because there was like, 4 of them), they got absolutely annihilated.

This itself is a problem. The antagonist section mostly? kind of sucks in my experience.

What is worse is people insist on having to make new charms for antagonists when its clear the game just wants to see Solar charms blowing up other Solar charm users if you want balance. So .. you might as well just attack them with other Solars, or wedge Solar charms onto those existing antagonist stat blocks until we eventually get other splat books.

But don't worry i'm sure all of their charms, evocations and artifacts will be (vastly) inferior to the Solar ones thus continuing this trend of everything being too weak to oppose a Solar party in a meaningful yet balanced way.

...

I tried introducing a brand new person to Exalted through ex3 and the whole initiative aspect was really confusing, if only because of the semantics involved. Like weapons doing damage for Withering attacks.. even though they don't do damage, they just reduce initiative? and then using Initiative to do Decisive attacks.. which cause Damage?

Its interesting but it needs some sort of cap on how it scales and its terminology to be reworked. Feels like all of their ideas are sort of half-assed into Storyteller's system, causing more execution problems than its worth.

Me personally? I wish they had just adapted what was already learned with nwod and GMC. Maybe one day we'll get an Exalted 3.5e or 4e adapted to Scions' new ruleset..

Not him, and I admit I don't have much actual play experience, but basically:

Motivation is gone and Intimacies are rated as Minor, Major, or Defining. In order to convince someone to do something, you have to do it through a strong enough Intimacy; the most persuasive person in the world can't talk someone into fighting the Unconquered Sun by their side unless they give a convincing reason. Without any Intimacy supporting your efforts, the most you'll manage is to get some spare change off them. With a Minor Intimacy, you could talk them into inconvenient but not dangerous tasks, like delivering a package on the other side of the city. With a Major Intimacy, you can get them to take some risks and go to greater lengths, like a merchant letting you stow away on their next ship to the Blessed Isle. With a Defining Intimacy, you can convince someone to do pretty much anything that isn't obviously suicidal.

So social influence becomes about discovering, influencing, and using the things a character cares about in order to get them to do what you want, rather than beating their head in with big numbers until they agree.

That was only true in the pre-release version, "a fair amount" seems kind of an overstatement considering it was only a handful of them (I only remember the Kejak one, which was quite eggregious).

okay, question here, because I never understood it, what's the problem with natural language?

Mainly that when rules conflict or intersect, Natural Language assumes, "oh, they'll figure it out."
Or that it has multiple potential interpretations that are equally valid but mutually exclusive.

For instance, can you combo the charm that reduces an armor's mobility penalty as you put it on with the one that reduces the time to don it to a number of rounds equal to said penalty? I could make an argument either way, but being able to reflexively bump your soak to ridiculous for the scene is a consideration.

>Yeah, I counted the amount of custom evocations I've done. Currently it's 55-60
And you are not sharing them because you want other storytellers to suffer too?

>Me personally? I wish they had just adapted what was already learned with nwod and GMC

My newest campaign (only second session so far, fresh out for 2017) is using the Beats/Aspiration/Conditions system from CofD combined with Vice/Virtue (replacing Limit, because Limit sucks as a mechanic).

It works great. Especially Aspirations are a great thing for Exalted where every plot is basically driven by the PCs anyway.

In the process I also removed bonus points in favor of flat 'free' XP, but that's beside the point.

Exalted 3E is a fine system. It's just that Chronicles of Darkness / GMC is so much better. Moving mechanics from CofD over to EX3 makes it a lot more fun.

>>LOl fAG whY areNt you using MULTIPLE CELESTIAL EXALTED and BattlGRoups to fight teh SOlARZ
There hasn't been a single enemy Celestial in our game so far and we reached Essence 3. We still almost died several time and had lots of fun combat.

Just run the setting GURPs you scrubs

If you're going to use a different system, at least use one that's not a steaming pile of shit.

Sorry, user, I left for work shortly after posting that, but covers it pretty well.

I have no idea what I've done differently from you, but your experience sounds nothing like mine. I've had fights that went on for multiple rounds and worked just fine, duels where both parties were crashed at some point, or where both parties took damage to their health levels, even. In my experience the combat system works just fine.

>the party bumrushes him and keeps him permanently in Initiative Crash, then wails on his dick with Decisive attacks until he's dead

If you're going to have /a single/ opponent fight multiple characters, at least give them some mooks or a charm to refresh DV. Of course they're going to get curbstomped when Onslaught is now cumulative, dummy.

>Its just not a good game. Even D&D 5e is a better investment of your time if you want functional combat mechanics that at least work as intended.

I mean, if D&D 5E's intent is "the rogue and fighter constantly fellate the group's casters" while having even worse natural language issues than 3E, then I suppose it's an exercise making the best shit game possible.

>As if Initiative wasn't already annoying to track with its constant ping-ponging

It isn't. Certainly, it isn't more annoying than Ticks, which deserve to die in a fucking fire.

>nevermind that range bands fall apart as soon as anyone targets something besides a single NPC...

Other systems, including Edge of the Empire and 13th Age use a range band system that is described in the exact same way. I wonder why those don't give other players conniptions...

It was a single piece that copied from four other products, and was immediately removed for the release version once it got their attention.

Also, all the worst pieces in the backer version were fixed.

I didn't think GMC's combat system is all the different from the older editions. Or is that not the case?

Not really, and I sure as hell wouldn't use nWoD's combat system for anything else. It's a serviceable system for WoD, especially for mortals, but not for a more action-heavy game.

Which Exalted definitely is. (Which made my experiences with 2E all the more painful)

Yeah. Personally I think Ex3's system works just fine for Exalted's needs. Well, most of the time. It is true that having several individual combatants involved can lead to a proper clusterfuck. On the other hand, I'm personally fine with most fights being pretty easily won, with actually difficult fights being either against some truly, earthshakingly powerful opponent or difficult due to some situational factors and complications. I'm also a fan of fights that don't involve the whole party. Like, the Dawn should get to have a nice duel every now and then, the Night should be allowed to get up to occasional ninja shenanigans on hiw own, and so on. The difficulty with such fights is handling them without making things dull for the people who don't participate, but it is doable.

It works. It's just really fucking demanding on a GM if you expect a lot of combat. This has always been the case. My best Exalted games have been where combat were rare but climactic, but I expect a lot of groups wouldn't tolerate that.

True. The group I play with is also cool with combat being infrequent. I mean, they are also cool with games where combat is frequent, but it's not required. Some groups are obviously different.

Part of the issue I've always had with exalted lies in the Dawn Caste. 'I'm the only guy who FightsGood and my sole role is to Fightgood' sorta makes any game that's going on 'Infrequent combat' or 'Non-required combat' rather painful.

I would have liked 3e to have done something a bit more like LOTW where it's 'All PCs have a basic level of competence in a fight'. As 3e can very easily have incredible differences in what people can fight safely.

>my impression was that response to Godbound has been overwhelmingly negative.

Don't judge Godbound's reception by the insane ramblings of Colette aka 2hu on /gbg/. Pretty much everyone else on the Net seems to consider Gangbang a triumph, Veeky Forums just got stuck with the Autismo Queen and for some inexplicable reason she has defenders here despite being literally the worst poster I've ever seen on Veeky Forums. Thirsty Touhou-liking NEETs, probably.

As for Ex3... It worked relatively well for the campaign I ran last year, although the Giant Siege I used it for took about 6 months of play to resolve. It suffers rather badly from natural language and from So Many Fucking Charms Holy Shit but the core mechanics are solid as fuck. Also the new locations are incredibly awesome-sounding and I can't wait for the regional supplements to come out.

Dawns also get to do some strongman stuff with athletics, can intimidate people and it's fairly easy to go into a secondary social focus if you take charisma anyway for command rolls.

>As 3e can very easily have incredible differences in what people can fight safely.

That's mainly a problem of players creating characters with little combat ability, though. Pretty much any Solar can construct a defensive suite with the right Caste/Favoured choices, and there's enough in Essence 1 to construct an OK attack sequence, at least from Melee and Brawl/MA.

At the very least, noncombat skills now have charms with combat utility. Someone with Presence can basically do an Elite Beat Agents style thing where their allies get dice bonuses from getting cheered on, Performance lets you be a D&D style bard, etc.

Or the epic Pokemon shenanigans of Survival!

>I would have liked 3e to have done something a bit more like LOTW where it's 'All PCs have a basic level of competence in a fight'.
I'd kind of prefer it if this was done by giving all or at least most Abilites some combat stuff. I don't mean that every Ability should be as good at combat, because that would be dumb, but, like, let the Lore guy logic his way to some bonuses and introduce facts about situational factors advantageous to him. Let the Presence guy defend himself with the radiation of his Charisma and attemoth disarm gambits by ordering his opponents to drop their weapons with such authority that they might obey before realizing what they're doing. Give everyone the tools to at least survive and preferably contribute, no matter their specialization. Actual combat Abilities should obviously still be superior to combat and probably the only Abilities for doing damage.

>ike, let the Lore guy logic his way to some bonuses and introduce facts about situational factors advantageous to him. Let the Presence guy defend himself with the radiation of his Charisma and attemoth disarm gambits by ordering his opponents to drop their weapons with such authority that they might obey before realizing what they're doing.

...Both of those abilities have charms that let you do either that precisely or something similar.

As the ST I typically encourage people to have some investment in combat so that when shit hits the fan they can actually contribute.

Conversely, I also tell the big combat monkeys that they should have some social investment so they aren't twiddling their thumbs waiting for something to murder when the rest of the Circle is chatting.

I find most of the people who played/know 2e tend not to have an issue with natural language in most cases.

>Part of the issue I've always had with exalted lies in the Dawn Caste
Castes are stupid alltogether for this very reason. Every Exalt is a fighter and a lover. Why do we need Dawns?

Yeah, just ditching Castes and letting Solars choose one favored Ability as Supernal would work for me.

>Then. The hardest difficulty a roll can have naturally is 5.

By RAW

You know Morke, one of the game's own designers, breaks this over his knee right? He makes some rolls difficulty 10. Just use difficulties above 10 sparingly things will drain pretty fast if everything is difficulty 10, the game trying to avoid the 2e logic of "Have 5/5 in the area you're rolling in or don't fucking bother"

There's also penalties to impose to lower the dicepool

>Then I have opponents. I will be first to admit that I am pretty shit at combat, and trying to challenge a party of 6 solars is like trying to give a worthy challenge to the Justice League... I don't think I've actually managed to hit any player with serious damage during these 15 sessions of game because jeezums is it hard to balance this group. Even when I try to fudge the dice to my side, I don't even manage to dent the PC:s properly. This is because most opponents would have unique charm lists, and fuck lord it's more custom content you have to create unless you are lucky and there are some readily available.

It took me like a year to get used to the new system, in figuring out that things can challenge PC's. After about a year of lopsided battles I only pulled it off recently in the past 2-3 battles our group had.

Thought six PC's I will admit is your own damn fault and part of the reason.

I love 3e, but I need to agree with one point here.

>Hell no, with how wildly Initiative scales up and down and very few attempts at putting any sane caps on damage

To me it feels like base initiative needs to be doubled or something, at least at the beginning of combat.

>4m to make withering only attacks for the round

I think it should be 5m 1WP for the round and/or a gap on initiative gain. I tried such a thing before user, it makes players insanely strong. The only way Crane form is balanced as it has balls for withering adders

No. If you like 2e and the rules were above your head, 3e is not for you.

>So how have the Lunars faired? Anything significant you guys know of?
Lunars release 2024 and climbing.

The biggest thing is not to just arbitrarily make something super high difficulty just to challenge the Circle. Look at the difficulties presented and go by those, and if things are genuinely harder, and not just through penalties, by all means increase the difficulty.

Typically I don't make things higher difficulties unless it's a contested sort of thing between two Exalts or supernatural beings. A riddle composed by a Sidereal will have a difficulty higher than 5 for a Solar Loremaster to decipher, things like that. Or if it's just beyond the scope of anything a mortal could possibly accomplish and that's the heroic mortals of Exalted, which is typically the type of cinematic nonsense you see in action movies.

I appreciate that they baked a 'no ERP' rule right into the book.

>As if Initiative wasn't already annoying to track with its constant ping-ponging, but now you want me to track an entire party's worth of NPCs as well?

Yup, that's how it works skippy.

If you don't do that then combat runs into one of those problems. Of course such things rarely happen in my game as I also actually know how to stat things so they'll live through those barrages you do.

In fact in last combat, I tracked 10 different NPC's

git gud