Exalted General

You know how official Lunars shapeshift into bears and badgers and stuff, but bears and badgers and stuff are really lame compared to glorious golden godkings that can level cities with their pecks so Lunars are kind of awful thematically?

Terrifying Argent Witches takes Lunars in the direction of more protean shapeshifting, where they can mix and match what their shape is, becoming chimera-like super-predators that are as divorced in power and scope from regular animals as Solars are from regular humans.

The madness more kind of manifests in the monstrous forms TAW Lunars can assume. It's not really forced onto their Chosen's mindsets.

TAW isn't terrible, but I'm waiting to see what the new devs are able to execute in 3e.

Ok, thats fine. So is this actually going to be a thing in 3E, or is this some horrible fan wishposting or some kind of homebrew thing?

It's an extensive homebrew for 2e.

Official Lunars in 3e are still going to be barbarian furries squatting in the woods with weaker versions of Solar Charms.

>some kind of homebrew thing?

This. It's 2e homebrew, and regardless of how you feel about it with regard to what might be coming in 3e there's no denying it's a fuck of a lot better than standard 2e Lunars.

>Official Lunars in 3e are still going to be barbarian furries squatting in the woods with weaker versions of Solar Charms.

Well, many of them are, at least. They're supposedly going for less "lol fuck civilization let's tear it all down and go shit in woods" and more "lol fuck the Realm let's rip off the Empress' head and shit down her neck", with a lot more room for individuals who don't fit the mold than you had in 1e.

I hope so. I'm just doubtful. Maybe new devs will come through.

At the very least, I doubt that whole "if you don't live the shit-in-the-woods barbarian animal lifestyle, Luna will actually take back your Exaltation" shit is gonna return.

To those who never read 1e Lunars, I am not kidding. That was a thing.

Aww, shit.

Ehh...

Given Exalted's track record with'em, I now no longer have any hopes up, seeing as this TAW thing isn't going to be the official. Guess I'll just have to ignore as much of the fluff as possible again for a 3rd edition, if I end up playing a Lunar.

>had an entire black text box on just why you're literal, civilization hating, raping, wipe-your-ass-with-a-pinecone-the-wrong-way-barbarians forever.

Fuck, don't remind me of that shit.

>Given Exalted's track record with'em, I now no longer have any hopes up
Focusing that much on Exalted's track record would make more sense if the same people were behind every edition of the game.

>seeing as this TAW thing isn't going to be the official.
This is a good thing, as TAW isn't really that good. Better than 1E Lunars, more interesting (though not entirely in a good way) than 2E Lunars, but those are some exceptionally low bars. TAW doesn't really deserve to be official, though there are definitely some ideas there the devs could stea- I mean, be inspired by.

TAW being official is really one of the only ways they can salvage this shitheap of a setting.

The only logical reason I can think of is wanting to save it for 4e (Which, again, should be done as soon as possible to get away from the abortion that is 3e)

Fuck off.

>This is what Infernal apologists actually believe.

Fuck that, TAW was terrible and it deserves to stay as shitty fanwork

Thank you

Ah, this is the sort of top notch rhetoric that keeps me coming back to Veeky Forums.

No, infernal apologists believe the Charmsets were awesome. And hands down they were, but the fluff was so unsalvagably tainted, that couldn't help.
I hope they get Neph on board for their next charmsets. Dude knows his craft.

Can you elaborate on what actually makes the Infernal Charmset awesome?

Of course. How they are tied to their Patrons, how they perfectly capture the transhumanist alien approach of infernals and the alien nature of hell, how they capture that the Yozis themselves are prisoners of their own nature, how they encourage you to excerises in ingenuity and how they originally fit perfectly into the grotesque environment of perfect spam that is 2e.

taw was crap

no, infernal charmsets WERE awesome.

it makes me angry that they cut charms to free up wordcount for the ch1 and 2 pointless rehashing of exalted history up to shogonate, "these are normal virtues but evil" and the rape scene.

...but that doesn't mean lunars should get twisted into overlaping with infernals or that infernals should get lunar's dbt 9_9

trash everything about lunars, replace with silver infernals and a dash of sidereal(but not just any i infernals. earthscorp-style fappery)

What kind of exalt would want to replace the Unconquered Sun, as king of the gods, with someone more useful?

Not become the king himself, not kill the Unconquered Sun, just find someone who does the job better, and is not addicted to the Games.

What do you mean? Any type of exalt could have a goal like that, so it boils down to the individual characteristics of the Exalt in question. As for what these individual characteristics would be, I think they're pretty obvious. It'd be someone who knows enough about what's going on to realize that the Sun isn't doing his job, someone who either isn't proud and abitious enough to want to tule himself or who can't be nothered to rule because his ambitions lie elsewhere, someone who has enough confidence in his powers and position as an Exalt to see replacing the king of gods as a valid option.

I've been thinking of exalt type.
So it's perfectly acceptable that a Solar would want this?

Didn't most of those cut charms make it into The Broken Winged Crane?

And almost every book wasted time on a history rehash, but yeah, whoever was managing Infernals must have forgotten to tell the 1-2 writer they wanted an anti-heroic tone... and then never paid attention until it was all written... and didn't read it...

Still though, it's not *that* much worse than Abyssals. The bit with Lillun is just a bit more blatant.

Yeah, though a freshly Exalted Solar in RY 768 probably wouldn't know enough to want it. Then again, in appropriate circumstances he might know.

>The devs should make a new edition because my favorite fan interpretation of a splat isn't canon

Damn, this is some pure ideology right here.

Reminds me of the crazy from back in the days of 1e, where we had threads on the WW forums arguing about whether the Usurpation was morally right or wrong, and all that other kind of shit.

Does anyone have the rules for mice of the sun from the second leak? They got cut before the core.

Page 693-696.

Ketchup Carjack did nothing wrong ok, Solar genocide best day of my life

>Official Lunars in 3e are still going to be barbarian furries squatting in the woods with weaker versions of Solar Charms.

I don't know if this is just echo chamber or what but this is not accurate.

It's a negative interpretation shilled by people who want Lunars to be SHAPESHIFTERS++ first, meaning protean entities rather than animal/primal themed Exalts. Did everyone just fucking forget in all their cosmic jerking off that the Exalted is also meant to model stories in which barbarism and it's facets are a major element?

TAW is not Exalted.

Seconded.

Also, that sorcerer-alchemist is showing admirable self-restraint. Fuck transgender, if I had access to Sorcerous Workings I'd go full transhuman.

>WW forums arguing about whether the Usurpation was morally right or wrong
That doesn't seem crazy at all. That seems like a perfectly valid question to ask. Hell, Batman v Superman was exactly that question. Superman's weird string of motivations and manipulations was pretty terrible, but if you focus on just Batman's perspective then you've got this nigh-invincible but still distressingly human creature that can destroy the entire world; is it worth taking it on trust that he won't? Is it better to keep him around or remove him while you still can?

Chejop Kejak is Batman in this analogy. And also in the Exalted setting.

Too far. Not even Chejop Kejak agrees with Chejop Kejak's actions with that much certainty.

it was

Interesting consensus developing here.
strawpoll.me/12745151

No option for irrelavent to the game being played/doesn't matter. Flawed poll.

In 2.5E is there a point in developing both Parry and Dodge?

You're free to not answer.

Yes. Unblockables/Undodgeables. Dodge works on ranged and lethal without essence.
Parry raises attack pool.

Sorry, different guy here.
> Dodge works on ranged and lethal without essence
This makes sense
> Parry raises attack pool.
Could you explain this a bit more? Do you just mean that raising Dex and [Melee / Brawl / Martial Arts] raises your Parry but also your attack pool or was there some mechanic I missed?

You said it's not accurate, then instead of explaining why or giving an accurate interpretation... You shit on that dude and then seem to argue why his interpretation is actually good for the game?

>Could you explain this a bit more? Do you just mean that raising Dex and [Melee / Brawl / Martial Arts] raises your Parry but also your attack pool or was there some mechanic I missed?
Nah, just Dex+Ability. Unless we're talking specific charms or specialites ít's generally the same though.

Am I really the only one who looked at that paragraph and thought it had overtones of "Dude, seriously, it totally happened to a friend of this guy who owed my mentor's old packmate a life debt."

I'm not gonna lie and say 1e Lunars didn't have a lot of really shitty ideas and execution. But the "civilization makes Luna take your Exaltation away" line feels, in its phrasing, less like "this is true" and more like "This Is What Some Lunars Actually Believe"

The issue was with the writing style. First Edition Lunars often jumped between in-character statements and out-of-character statements without doing a very good job of making it clear which was which. So it was hard to tell if the "Lunars lose their Exaltation if they spend too much time in the cities," was the game telling you that this was how it worked, or if it was just some Lunars who thought it worked that way.

Does anyone else want Lunar bond to be a pretty big deal? And I don't mean the way it was done in the past. A powerful tool that a Solar and Lunar can use together for both mechanical and roleplay aspects.

Basically instead of making the Lunar listen to the Solar the Lunar wants to hang out with the Solar. And the Solar wants to hang out with the Lunar. Maybe something like make their effective essence 1 dot higher for charm and spell effects if working together on a task. Or discount mote cost for charms. Add bonuses to both of their intimacies for protection or offense in social combat. Or defend each other reflexively if within a certain range. There is a lot of things you can do with the bond to make it appealing for both the Solar and Lunar to buy it as a merit and not make it be a Lunar pet scenario.

Also it would be cool that instead of being bound to each other the Lunar can initiate some pact between themselves and the Solar to create the bond in game between a willing Solar and Lunar. Especially since there may be more Lunars then Solars now.

But I know everyone wants something different from Lunars and I may be the only one who loves the Gilgamesh/Enkidu angle.

I'm pretty ambivalent on Lunar Bond itself, but what I want out of Lunars is the ability to be good lieutenants and bodyguards (teamwork stuff, somehow without stepping on DB toes).

I didn't know how much I wanted this till now

+1 Essence and mote discounts would be a game defining bonus, quickly and easily blowing everything else out of the water. If it was something like a Hearthstone (better mote regen outside of combat) or something along the lines of "Once per story, spend an hour with your Solar/Lunar mates company and regain 1WP" it'd give a tangible mechanical benefit without forcing everyone to get a Lunar mate in order to keep up with anyone who already has one.

If you make it a variable point merit where the higher points you spend the more powerful the bond and maybe gate it in an interesting way it should not be too bad. The mote discount may be a bit much but Artifacts changing your essence for charm calculations is not out of the question.

As for gating you could make storyline reasons why you can't buy the higher dots until you are in sync with each other enough. There is a lot of ways to balance it (if such a thing could be said about Exalted) while still making a Lunar bond mechanic powerful.

unlike dodge, parry isn't it's own ability, so it's raised by raising an attack stat

I just wanna turn the lunar into my familiar and forget the bond ;)

sense share, extra 5 mote storage available with contact, buff eachother with familiar enhancing charms?

>Focusing that much on Exalted's track record would make more sense if the same people were behind every edition of the game.

Different people have been behind Lunars every edition, and every edition they have been shit at best. The problem has always been no one knows what to do with them, and no one has ever tried to make their shapeshifting anything interesting. And now this edition they're trying to go with the least interesting possible options.

It's a shame to see potential squandered this long, this many times.

So what would make their shapeshifting interesting? And what makes what they are going with now least interesting?

I used the bond as a shared comittment bonus.
Any artifact attuned by one is automatically attuned for free by the other. Attunements to hearthstones could be transfered with a touch and no duration limit (actually it was "look on the sun or the moon once per day").

This included bonuses for moonsilver or oricalcum or such things.

To me, something of a cross between what they were going for with 2E Lunar shapeshifting, how you could basically turn into anything, and Infernal stuff. Basically, I want it to run the gamut from Hulk Mode DBT, to the guy who can turn into a flowerbed to hide from a patrol, to some crazy Cthulhu looking motherfucker who is a nightmare combination of things that probably shouldn't exist. Really go buck wild and make them "The Exalted of Shapeshifting" rather than "The Exalted of turning into a tiger when a tiger really isn't very impressive by Exalted standards".

And what they're going with so far from what I've been reading, is basically "Exalted of Animal shapes" which is probably the least interesting thing you could do with a "race" of shapeshifters. It really feels like they just want them to be the Werewolf analog and nothing else by this point.

Shapeshifting into animals is interesting, but very limited. Taking on traits that are more than just animals.

A no moon shapeshfting into a spirit and being dematerialised.
A full moon changing his arm into indestructible moonsilver to parry the teeth of a behemoth.

drive.google.com/open?id=0B4wN-6BdRhC5Q3NvNnFpTERWdTg

PEACH my abyssal antagonist circle

So I'm going to be running The Tomb of Dreams this sunday for some friends. (the recently released quickstart)

Is there anything I should be aware of or keep in mind if I'm running Exalted for the very first time?

This, plus it was a bad idea to even put forward the concept in jest.

So, more good news about Dragon-Blooded.

>Q: So do Dragon-Blooded use the same XP chart as Solars?
>A: Yeah, Dragon-Blooded currently have identical XP costs to Solars. Not necessarily everyone will follow the same table, but they won't deviate from it without reason. (direct quote from Vance)

10/10

Would murder-fuck all of them. Especially Soulsteel Ape.

"Things that shouldn't exist" isn't really part of the domain of Luna, or any other god. That would probably have to be Oramus.
And what I've seen from the devs regarding Lunars is that they want to make it so you can absolutely play a Lunar who doesn't fight with DBT or grew up in the lap of luxury and wouldn't ever trade it for fur and leather, and that they are moving away from "all animal-themed charms" because that's really limiting. The shapeshifting is probably still mostly constrained to animals, but they have said that chimeras will be treated as something acceptable, that you will be able to shift parts of your body multiple times in a turn, and if you can shapeshift into humans as well it's possible that there will be other non-animal shapeshifting options. And rather than being the zoo exalted, their themes are supposed to be rage, freedom, predation, and monstrousness, so even if they can't become sanity destroying terrors from the Beyond, it seems pretty likely that you could still turn yourself into a rampaging cathedral of flesh if you wanted.
But personally I'm more curious to see how they are going to make them interesting and distinct outside of shapeshifting.

I'm still waiting on

>Q: what are you doing about the craft system?
>A: We're making a new one

What? Is that real?

>New craft system

OH THANK GOD

No, its what he wan't to happen. However its never going to happen and he should get over it.

Yes what said.

I was just making a joke.

>A no moon shapeshfting into a spirit and being dematerialised.
>A full moon changing his arm into indestructible moonsilver to parry the teeth of a behemoth.

2e did both of those

And 3e rather than try to make them neat and functional is threatening to throw those out.

>I've been thinking of exalt type.
>So it's perfectly acceptable that a Solar would want this?
For the most part, any goal is valid for any type of exalted.

>"Things that shouldn't exist" isn't really part of the domain of Luna, or any other god. That would probably have to be Oramus.

That would necessarily come with altering Lunars to support any changes in how they function. It's not like Luna is particularly well defined in any case other than "She's the moon, can tongueblast a primordial's lovehole well enough to get them to switch sides, and sometimes rides the Sun's big ol' chariot if you know what I mean", and she already has a number of different forms anyway.

Without having it as Supernal, about how many Charms should be good into the Single Point style? Just to the Form?

At what Essence level? You can only have the first two at E1.

The Primordials were pretty particular about what they allowed into Creation. Oramus tread the boundaries of what is and what isn't to make sure nothing that shouldn't be got in. Adrian and the Unconquered Sun patrolled the boundaries to of Creation to keep the Raksha and all those non-Primordial gribblies didn't get in and muck things up. So why would they make a god of being that which should not exist? That seems tremendously out of character for them.

Luna aside, one of the few things that actually are well-defined and interesting about Lunars is that they actually have to acquire the shapes they shift into, whether by the sacred hunt or some other means. This is one thing that certainly shouldn't be thrown out. I don't think that taking the shape of "things that shouldnt exist" is entirely inapproriate for Lunars, though, as long as those things are more Chimera-like than anything else. Mixing and matching traits of various exiting creatures whose shape the Lunar has acquired seems both cool and perfectly appropriate to me.

>exiting
This should be "existing".

So I am kind of in need of some idea help. Anybody have any cool ideas for some eye based supernatural celestial workings?

Can we get any backstory?

Heat beam eyes

>forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/exalted/1069023-ask-the-devs?p=1078033#post1078033
Yeah, whatever, that's not even in the runnings for a top 1000 weird shit sorcerers do to amuse themselves. If it makes you feel better I can fake outrage for you.

GOD I HATE IT WHEN RANDOM NON-VITAL CANON CHARACTERS HAPPEN TO MAKE OTHER PEOPLE HAPPY BY CONFORMING TO WHATEVER ODDITIES THAT PERSON HAS ABOUT THEM.

But I am, spiritually, a snake, so good on them for that one snakeman Solar.

Honestly I just hope they're well-fitted characters that don't seem like they're there purely to tick off quota marks.

I mean to be honest, if you replace "Gender Shenanigans" with "Archetypes that are a stones throw from DND classes" then most of the canon characters are that. Unless they are set up as BBEG characters.

I mean, I agree with you, hope it's a cool character. Won't stop some neckbeards from rampaging about the MtF thing whether or not the character is written well.

I agree. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with transgender characters in Exalted, as long as being transgender isn't their entire character.

Yeah, including that kind of stuff is pretty much to win non-existant virtual brownie points from people that probably don't play this shit to begin with, same as comics, same as video games, etc.

tl;dr Most of this isn't relevant to anything at all, I mean, what kind of campaign is this even going to be featured in? Does it really matter if the local Satrap is a trigendered rabbit fucker beyond being some random tidbit that most likely won't matter?

See through walls, see dematerialized beings, see Essence, turning people to stone (Medusa), burning people alive (Balor), Penance Stare (Ghost Rider)

youtube.com/watch?v=f77gw2Pp3aY

Anyways, so, what's your guy's favorite charm from 3e?

It doesn't matter, true enough. It doesn't matter one way or another. It's the kind of detail that the devs should be able to include when writing a character without it being a big deal.

Exactly. Honestly, they probably shouldn't include anything like that in most characters profiles. Let the GM determine if they're gay, straight, has 17 dicks, whatever the fuck.

>It's the kind of detail that the devs should be able to include when writing a character without it being a big deal.

Or without making a big deal of it.