/exg/ - Exalted General

I don't like 3E sorcery. Yes, it's better than 1&2E. But it also now is just generic "I cast the spells" magic. I liked it better as a very slow, big toolkit thing, rather than battlemages being a thing, because that was a thing that Exalted specifically tried to avoid in it's original incarnation.

>Still, at the very least it's not like these two guys can fuck everything up as badly as Holden and Morke did, and at this point I'd rather have slightly sub-par material coming out than nothing at all.

Holden and Morke did a good job overall, but I still would appreciate a faster development schedule either way.

Don't do it. It's just a bad idea, user.

>Holden and Morke did a good job overall

Rules turned out better overall.

Charm bloat got worse.

Setting fluff got a fuckton worse. All sorts of dumb shit got added, like these shitty new Exalt types that the game certainly didn't need to slow down an already glacial release schedule, if the game even survives that long. The best Exalted fluff is still 1E's fluff, and thats fucking sad.

The idea behind Exigents are cool though. The rest can fuck off. Especially undead DBs.

>Rules turned out better overall.

Yes

>Charm bloat got worse.

No. They honestly work better as discreet powers than as generic I-win-buttons. Taboo Inflicting Diatribe killed plots, it didn't create them. They wrote a lot of charms, certainly, but that's not a problem for me.

>Setting fluff got a fuckton worse.

Bullshit. The Dreaming Sea is probably one of the best locations in any edition, and Exigents are a pretty smart idea in that they can already fill any conceivable niche in the setting while still providing an Exalt-tier challenge.

So, I vehemently disagree with your opinions on 3E, even if I am pretty optimistic about Minton and Vance either way.

I still want to play as a Liminal, and Getimians are interesting.

>discreet powers
>generic I-win buttons

user, why are these the only two possibilities you are capable of seeing?

Exigents to me feel like rebranded Godblooded. I'd rather they just have mutated the setting enough that Godblooded could've been of varying enough power to fill the "role" that Exigents are filling. Adding Exigents just seems pointless and something to further dilute the setting and release schedules with to me.

Charm bloat is Charm bloat. We're going by the number count here, in this case. The core book alone is stuffed to the breaking point.

Also I'm fine with Charms of Solars breaking plots. They're Solars, thats what they do. You don't get to be a Cthulhu smashing Godking without having access to really powerful shit.

The exigent book is going to be "How to homebrew your own exalts: the book". I'd be willing to wager that within a week we'll have every Exalt type from 2e given unofficial updates to 3e that are actually decent, unlike the copy-paste jobs we've got now.

If anything, it won't slow the release schedule down, but "accelerate" it, because you'll be able to use the book to play any type of Exalt you want to that doesn't have official rules yet.

user, I-win-buttons was 2E charm design in a nutshell. It is why that changed.

Using God-Blooded, however, just raises an issue: why don't gods just fuck around with mortals instead of bothering with all these shards and shit if they wanted an army to stop the Primordials.

>Charm bloat is Charm bloat. We're going by the number count here, in this case. The core book alone is stuffed to the breaking point.

It has about as many Solar Charms as there were in the tail end of 2E, with the added caveat that we aren't going to get more Solar Charms.

>Also I'm fine with Charms of Solars breaking plots.

The problem is not breaking plots. Solars do that in 3E all the time. The problem is killing any form of conflict. When you can just roll into a city and outlaw slavery by fiat, it just cheapens the entire conflict while making a plot where you go address the problem in a more meaningful fashion redundant.

Given how bad home brew usually is, and how bad past dalliances the Exalted systems have been with any kind of home brew advice and rules, I'm expecting nothing less than abject failure, honestly.

>Using God-Blooded, however, just raises an issue: why don't gods just fuck around with mortals instead of bothering with all these shards and shit if they wanted an army to stop the Primordials.

Easy fix: The average God can't make kids worth shit, or is unable to, or uninterested in doing so. Plus it takes time. You gotta raise these little shits, and if they die, you've gotta raise another one! Not to mention most Gods suck ass at understand what mortals need or want. And most of this is already part of existing Godblooded fluff.

I'd still rather keep godblooded as lower tier beings that just amount to 'super buff mortals' without having them completely stomp up and down vigorously on the Dragonblooded's toes, man.

there needs to be some sort of bits and bobs for things that are not exalts but still PC's to play with.

Unfortunately, I think third edition is unsalvageable at this point. A lot of the player base has given up due to all the waiting. The core mechanics are just horrible messes of dice adding you practically need a spreadsheet to calculate in a timely manner. The charms are dull and uninteresting. I can't even fathom how you would get new players into this game.

Godblooded, Raksha, and ghosts?

Whatever else though, these beings should still not be as big a deal as an Exalt.

The past editions had those, and they were mostly shit and inferior to Exalt's in most every way, which led to "Why are we playing these?" moments.

But, I'm running a game for entirely new players and they love it.

The core mechanics largely work well, though you will need to use an automated dice roller.

The charms function well, ranging from small buffs to major game changers.

>The past editions had those

One was called Dragon-Blooded.

I don't think it's unsalvageable. However, what they do need to do is get some fucking books out, and I mean, actual books. We need to see DB's, Lunars, Sids, etc, because this shit (well, ok, DB's mostly) forms the core antagonists for most peoples games.

It's also still selling shockingly well, in spite of its lack of releases. There is a significant interest in the game, if being the top seller on the GM's day sale is any indication.

I obviously meant Fae/God/etcblooded, those dinosaur people, Fae, Ghosts, etc.

Actual Dragonblooded still should be pretty weak compared to Celestials, but not Godblooded-tier weak.

Which I think might have also been a contributor to how long it took for things to get to the point where a shakeup seemed necessary.

"Hey, we're still moving the books like hotcakes so we've got to be doing something right, right?"

Battle Mages suck in 3rd edition. It generally takes too long to build up enough motes to throw out big attacks. Plus, you can't deal Withering damage with your spells, so you won't be able to get your Initiative high enough to deal enough damage to kill someone without using other attacks first.

Spells function nicely as big decisive finishing moves, but trying to play a battle mage in 3rd edition is only a little less frustrating than it was in 2nd edition.

I know, I was making a snide reference to the whole "Are Dragon-Blooded REALLY Exalted?" meme that was around in 2e.

Merits like Burning Name, which lets you make withering attacks with your occult rating, helps immensely.

I pretty much let players take a similar merit, but refluffed, for any initiation.

I like Liminals. And I can't wait for 2030 to roll around so I can play one.

I'm actually optimistic that it'll be done sooner now.

FEELS WEIRD.

2e charm design was hot garbage, no one is arguing against that (if it is even possible to). 3e is an improvement to be sure. I simply posit that it can be improved yet again, to something that is like neither.

Possibly. But I'm not willing to consider it bloat: it is still fewer solar charms than existed by the end of 2E and the reasons for keeping their scope more limited acts to the game's benefit rather than its detriment.

>fewer charms than an ENTIRE
>EDITIONS
>worth of Charms
>in the core fucking rulebook alone

Now think about how bloated all the other splatbooks are going to be.

And you'd be retarded to think they're not gonna do more Charms in splats for Solars, either. They're the bread and butter of the game, the most played type and the core rules guys. They're going to get more Charms.

I suppose we'll have to wait and see, but I seriously doubt we're going to see more Solar charms for some time. More Sorcery, Evocations, and Martial Arts, maybe, but there are going to be more splat types that require development first.

Thoughts on the Resonant/Dissonant mechanics?

Potentially Agreeing With Us user would probably be less opposed to potentially agreeing with us if you were more polite.

At this point I honestly wish they'd just gone full generic for the charms and just said "Use this shit for any Exalt type you want" with a few lines of additional effects for other Exalt types.

Like you'd have a base effect anyone who uses the Charm gets, then DB's would get a slightly more powerful effect, Celestials a fat power boost, and Solars their DEW THE DEW EXXXXXXTREEEEEME tier stuff.

Would've been much easier to balance

I support them. If nothing else, it reinforces Liminals as the Terrestrial to the Abyssals' Celestial. If Abyssals represent the existential horror and mystique of death, then I want Liminals to be a manifestation of its physical aspects, such as rigor mortis and decay.

I mean, isn't that how MA more or less functions?

I don't know if I agree with this though: I want Solar charms to feel distinctive from Lunar charms. God only knows 2E fucked them with the whole Silver Solar thing.

I'm not exactly out of line here I think, unless one takes offense at the word "retarded".

I'd rather have a game I play in under 15 years of dev time than one that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside with a few extra lines of fluff tailored to the same "add a die, lose a die" effect we've seen before.

A game I can play, I meant.

Missing a word kind of ruined that whole thing. Oops.

You werent "offensive" just not... eh, doesnt matter.

Hey, maybe we should make our own charmset. With blackjack, etc. You seem a reasonable fellow.

Nah, I'm not up to making a whole Charm set that'll probably never see use.

I'm more sad that the release schedule for Exalted is basically fucked and we're probably not seeing anything the setting actually needs for a while.

> we're probably not seeing anything the setting actually needs for a while.
Depends on how fast they can publish the artifact book (something everyone can use) and the Dragonblood book (setting's primary antagonists). They're apparently been sitting at "almost done" for months now, so who knows when they'll actually be able to be released?

Fair enough. Btw, good on you for posting images on an imageboard. That last one makes a great Chosen of Secrets.

I know that Dragonblooded playtesting has been happening, at least.

I used to dump art all the time. So I figure dropping some while also letting words fall out of me works too.

Yeah, the DB book really needs to be put out as soon as possible. Kinda hard to run Exalted without proper rules for the main antagonists for just about everyone in the setting.

My book finally came today.
I live 500 miles away from my old game group.
Even if they were nearby, the people who wrote the book went out of their way to personally insult one of them.
I've already read the pdf over and over, looking for anything resembling a system I'd use at the table and only finding new art they got from DA and old art they hastily censored.
I don't think the physical copy of the book is ever getting taken out of its plastic wrap.
At least I got the cloth map. It's pretty nice, and at this ridiculously late date, it's all I wanted.
And now, I get to live my life without ever giving Onyx Path another cent. Feels good, user.

>Yeah, the DB book really needs to be put out as soon as possible. Kinda hard to run Exalted without proper rules for the main antagonists for just about everyone in the setting.
Just use Clutch, duh

>the people who wrote the book went out of their way to personally insult one of them.
?

>Even if they were nearby, the people who wrote the book went out of their way to personally insult one of them.

>is another person that one of the devs personally insulted
Who, out of curiosity? Inugami?

...

Shut the FUCK up notanautomaton

With the Exigent book on the release schedule, what Exigent ideas do you have?

An Exigent Flame that takes the form of two giant silicone butt implants. Whosoever is surgically attached to them becomes CHOSEN OF ASS.

I'm diggin' that Exigents don't necessary pass on their Exaltation in the Celestial or Terrestrial way.

>Especially undead DBs.

Serious talk. Underworld Aspected DBs were a fucking great idea, that was never properly explored in 2e. It wasn't helped by the fact that statistically, there were 10 underworld DBs in the entire universe.

If they can make it work this time, that would be awesome.

The new undead zombie "DB" are a fucking shit tho.

Exigent of poop

Everyone poops. Who controls the flow of poop, controls the creation.

Exigent of Waste

Wouldn't his domain encompasses everyone here?

>It wasn't helped by the fact that statistically, there were 10 underworld DBs in the entire universe.
20. 10 Realm, 10 Outcaste.

...

The Guardians, the Chosen of Ruin, the Exalted of the God of Fallen Ages, whose body slumbers like a tiny moon in the air over a settlement known as The Last City, for it is one of the very few places known to maintain a First Age techno-sorcerous infrastructure.

The Chosen are Exalted by flying, sapient fragments of First Age artifice that scout out the ruins of fallen civilizations and then, when they locate the remains of someone suitable, warp time to bring them forward to the present from their moment of death so that they can become Exalted - a true miracle that not even the most powerful sorceries can duplicate, made possible by the power of Exaltation.

Where the Solars are the great heroes of old brought anew, these are ordinary individuals of past ages brought forward and given power to bring right a fallen world, or to cast it even further into ruin. Where the Lunars are things of tooth and claw and monstrous instinct, they are the Everyman, armed with the tools of civilization, both to build and to destroy.

Also a total ripoff of the Guardians from Destiny, translated into Exalted and very slightly altered to fit the game's themes. Video related, which inspired this idea:

youtube.com/watch?v=Ja8Z7X079l0
>WE ARE THE LAST
>Children of the cataclysm, awoken in a silent prison
>Out into the great collapse we ride (WE RIDE WE RIDE WE RIDE)
>WE ARE THE LAST
>Shadows of a ravaged paradise, sanctuary born of sacrifice
>Supernova dying stars collide (COLLIDE, COLLIDE, COLLIDE)

They help a *little*. They still have nothing but excellencies to buff their rolls, unless you goof, and let them tie it to something like Craft, that lefts them roll a billion dice.

The Burning Name can be buffed by Occult charms. At Essence 1, this includes basically every charm in the Spirit-Cutting Attack tree (including a relatively powerful defensive charm in Uncanny Shroud Defense), Ancient Tongue Understanding (gain a free bonus success on all Occult rolls), and Supernal Control Method (free full Excellency 1/round).

You could also likely use Evocations to buff your attacks - for instance, refluffing Stormcaller to be a storm-controlling Sorcerous Relic and using it to buff your ability to toss around lightning.

I actually have a concept waiting for official rules to be written up. His name is Momo Al Gamal and he's the Exigent of Oases. Here's the 2.5 homebrew charmset if you're interested.

(Addendum : the charmset's obviously incomplete as the character only needed a few charms to be a functionnal NPC, and mostly it's just Solar and Infernal charms converted to fit the themes, so don't expect anything transcendental.)

Just ups it from one/thousand to one/hundred.

That would make approximately 200 underworld DBs in Creation. Enough to have a meaningful impact on the setting and create viable schools of technique for them, but not enough to truly change large scale policies.

It'd mean that for any given Great House there's at least a score of Underworld DBs. Probably something seen as a curse and shunned upon, but on the other hand useful for their non standard abilities. Kind of like a sorcerer.

Thanks

dead game

Dead post.

I wish Strength was a better stat. I ended up making my Zenith notPaladin 525 physical. It will only take 1 or 2 sessions to get him to Dex 3, and my ST is definitley a story guy over a combat guy, so I'm not worried. Plus, our group's min/maxer is going Dawn, so he'll be able to take care of anything challenging combat-wise during the campaign, let alone the first 2 sessions.

>a crown for ants

same. although i guess that's where solars excel. while their attributes aren't perfect, their abilities more than compensate (with excellencies and whatnot)

>taking the godstat as your dump stat
If you think it'll work out, man

What are you using for combat? Tiger Style is great for making the most out of Strength and White Reaper is nothing to turn your nose at. Pick up Armor Eating Strike in case you need that extra push.

Correct.

Considering the Dicetricks were designed as a way for Solars to break through their dicecap and be able to achieve ridiculous things in a less reliable way than 2nd Ed's I(A)M, I'm not sure that's actually correct. If we consider this, then other splats might very well not need tons of new dicetricks. Chances are they won't be getting more than a handful at most.

>Thoughts?
Niceme.me

I mean, thank you for sharing, but I don't even remotely care.

It'll never be a "great" stat until they stop making Dex do everything. Which will be never, because they had the chance to finally break away from the tremendously shitty Storyteller based system with 3E, and instead kept it.

You should keep posting pictures by the way.

anything involving raw speed should be Strength

The grapple tree in Brawl lets you roll Strength to attack.

Considering that most DMs have DBs be cannon-fodder is there really even a roll for not even exalted in most games?

Granted the power differentials between solaroids and everyone else aren't as bad in 3e as they had been in the past but the challenge level associated with things like godblooded, demonblooded, ghostblooded, etc was super low like non-exalted thaumaturge level.

The grapple tree in Brawl lets you roll Strength to make grapple gambits.

A godblooded could have a very narrow area where they're really good at something. So the godblooded of a god of wrestling might be really good at wrestling. He might even wrestle on par with an Exalt. He wouldn't be able to do anything else any better than a human could though.

So is there any real word on how many Dragon-blooded are a minimum to give a single Solar a challenge? How many are required to give a solar circle a challenge?

Is it going to be like it was in the past where a moderately experienced solar circle (essence 3 or so) was able to trash all of the Tepet legions? Or are they going to tone down the fanboyism in 3e?

The power gap will be less pronounced between Solars and DBs, though it'll still be there. They stated that a full circle of DBs should be roughly on par with a Dawn Caste.

Meh, blooded just means that you dad or mom had sex with something other than another mortal.

I don't think that godblooded should necessarily be tied to the same themes as their divine parents. Maybe a inclination towards similar themes but in general they should be heroic mortal ++

Probably going to be a lot closer in power level than the previous editions, simply because of the way the mechanics work now.

Which sucks ass, because that falls right back into "Why do we need X Exalts when we can just pile on more DB's" arguments.

That depends on a few things. A single combat focused DB could likely challenge a non combat focused Solar. A perfect Solar circle will likely need a full on Wyld hunt, possibly one that brings an army of mortals to bear.

Melee, but I'm more of an endurance fighter than a killing fighter. I have a good amount of Resistance, and a lot of Integrity (it's my Supernal, I just like it too much) and Presence. My Melee is mostly focused on anti-CoD Charms.

Of course the child of a god should have themes and powers that are flavored by their divine parentage.

If your character's father was a god of libraries, you shouldn't be getting powers related to killing people and kicking ass.