Exalted General - /exg/

For the average person, probably Cynis, since they love drug dealing and all the stuff that comes with it. Probably has ton of illicit slave/sex dens all over, drugs everywhere, always on the lookout for more debauchery opportunities.

>If they had ever played Exalted, they'd know this is quite literally impossible by the canon, but no, never had anyone run this, thankfully.

I think the only way someone would run this without it being an Infernals game is they'd been introduced to Exalted by Keychain Of Creation, which does have the threat of the Yozis getting out.

To be fair to KoC however, it only matters that the characters believe it might be possible, not that the Keys / the God of Locks could actually unleash them.

I guess also the ST could come fresh from DnD, and believe the biggest possible threat makes the most compelling reason ("Orcus invades the Material Plane")

I think the best thing is not to point out the canon impossibility, but the fact that it shuts so many other stories down in favor of the cliched immediate Race to Preserve Creation itself.

Same issues with 2E Deathlord plots really - no room to have local adventures, without it being ultimately meaningless.

Are Holden and Morke still liars? (I've been out of the loop)

They're no longer developers of the Exalted line.

Vance and Minton are now developers.

So "Vance and Milton are X", what will X be? non-4channers?

I guess my question is:

Are you, the Exalted fanbase, overjoyed with 3E? Merely satisfied? Mildly disatisfied? Disgusted?

It's an improvement over 2e, so I'm satisfied in that regard. Is it perfect? No, but it's probably the best wuxia-style-tabletop-fighting-game-turned-RPG around.

Reminder that Vance and Minton are un4chanate people?

>If they had ever played Exalted, they'd know this is quite literally impossible by the canon

false

(it is SUGGESTED that the storyteller decide if it is possible and inform the players, and there was an unofficial retcon attempt as some dev backpedaled on a forum post and declared it impossible after too many people bitched about the very idea of it stealing their spotlight)

No, in the original GoD, it was impossible for the Yozis to breakout. There was no wiggle room for them; they can only ever watch it and send smaller bits of themselves out. They deign to occasionally let lesser beings out only because of this, as if their demons were as bound (by their own efforts, no less), the Yozis would feel insulted that they "enjoyed" the same "status".

Is anyone running Exalted online? The only game I can find is a 2e adventure path over at Roll20.

I am.

Got room?

Depends.

Friendly forever ST who prefers more social and cunning characters to those that solve problems by blowing them up. Free Mondays-Thursdays, voice or text.

Just about to finish up a two year game myself.

meh, they're not so bad. mostly it's that they oppose solars who'd be doing the same exact thing only bigger and shinier :eyeroll:

Oh shit dog, you still clinging to 1e fluff? How's each of your motes being a nuclear bomb working for you?

I am going to bring Granblue Fantasy to Exalted. Not the story or characters. Just the setting. Hundreds of Sky Islands floating incredibly high over the Great Western Ocean. All connected by Skyships that if they fly too low stop working and fall out of the sky like a brick. When the ships hit the waves they are destroyed along with pretty much everyone on board. And if anyone survives and is rescued from drowning the people of the West think they are crazy from dehydration. The people in the Sky Islands have legends of the land down below that was destroyed in a cataclysm and about the Great War between the Creators and the Elemental Lords.

Might as well keep the stupid sexy beastmen and potatoes as well as Solar created mutants. The Dorafs were canonically a slave race for the Astrals.

What do you like better? Fond Rememberance of Adrián or Purity of Madness Defense?

>implying that was 1E fluff
>implying not sticking the purest rendition of the fluff isn't a good thing after 2E "JUST BLING MY SHIT UP BRO" and 3E's "We're going back to 1E fluff, so heres a bunch of shit that never existed in 1E and also we're gonna mangle the setting even more"

The locations added in 3e were good though.

Dreaming Sea actually made the Southeast of Creation interesting, as before it was "GRASSLANDS, GRASSLANDS AND SAVANNA'S AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE!"

I don't know how it's that difficult to keep editions and their poorly-thought out sidebars straight, user. We only have three of them, not some affair with original, red box, first, second, third, 3.5, etc.

And then your Lunar unexalted for being in cities too much, right?

They're also not any worse than the average mortal dynast, but that still makes them pretty damn bad. Whether they're bad or not isn't really all that important, though, because it isn't what determines whether they'll make good antagonists or not. The Dragon-Blooded of the Realm are part of a system that puts themselves and their empire on top at the expense of the rest of the world, and this obviously makes them good antagonist material. Many of the individual Dragon-Blooded working to uphold this system are honorable, admirable people who genuinely believe that the Realm's dominance is needed for the safety and stability of the Creation. These people are hardly villains, but they are still make for good antagonists. There are, of course, also plenty of Dragon-Blooded who are assholes. The prevailing system lets them get away with being such assholes, and even more morally upright DBs contribute to their assholery in a way, because of their efforts at maintainig the system.

>and even more morally upright DBs contribute to their assholery in a way, because of their efforts at maintainig the system.

Hell, a certain amount of assholery is part of being morally upright under the Immaculate system; Dragon-Blooded are expected to lord their station over mortals to a certain degree. If you don't, that's not showing enough respect for your own place in the scheme of things.

This is true to a degree. Ont he other hand, the Immaculate Faith also requires the Dragon-Blooded to actually give a shit about their mortal underlings and to set a good example to them, which many DBs more or less ignore.

I'm guessing you're providing this answer based on the 2E depiction of dragon-blooded, and you really shouldn't because that depiction was asinine and a strong majority of dragon-blooded were at least half-decent people. Power tends to corrupt and they have a lot of power, so they end up rather like Tony Soprano:

>Yeah, I inherited a lot of power and didn't directly do anything to gain it, but I have to work my ass off to keep it. Everyone wants to take my wealth, my status, and my life, including other Terrestrials. I'm no slouch, I don't have that luxury. So if a mortal gets any ideas about taking my spot, I'm gonna make an example out of them. Know your fucking place. And if you do know your place, I'll protect you from fey and demons and anathema and all manner of other fucked up shit, so be grateful. I'm your best option. Pay your taxes, asshole.

House Cynis is the exception to what I just said, though. Can't be the good guys when you wield opium as a strategic weapon.

>Can't be the good guys when you wield opium as a strategic weapon.

Lies.

>youtube.com/watch?v=yHNfvJc99YY

>House Cynis is the exception to what I just said, though. Can't be the good guys when you wield opium as a strategic weapon.
On the other hand Cynis Denovah Avaku is a pretty good guy, so individual members of House Cynis can be as decent as anyone else.

I was about to say this. Thanks user for posting it before me.

>puts themselves and their empire on top at the expense of the rest of the world

Only a tiny number of mortals know that "anathema" are absolutely necessary for saving Creation, and an even smaller proportion of dragon-blooded know it. Hardly anyone knows how the Usurpation doomed Creation. Is it reasonable to say that terrestrials make good antagonists for mortals when neither party realizes that the Scarlet Empire will kill the world if it isn't dismantled?

>These people are hardly villains

No, they're pretty clearly villains. As much as White Wolf used to like to pretend "muh moral ambiguity" was a thing in their games, pretty much everyone was laughably evil to the point of cartoon villainy levels. The DB's were no different. An incredibly corrupt system on all levels wholly devoted to putting the top 1% of the 1% over everything else (literally) that also engages in outright extortion of multiple countries. Plus nearly all of the example NPC's were outright titanic assholes.

They might as well all come with free twirling moustaches and black capes, and a free set of railroad tracks to tie your Lunar waifu to.

Has anyone got the antagonist PDF yet?

>Thinking about making a new style
>Spear-wielding style that's focused on being a Big Damn Hero. By which I mean it has charms that make people idolize you and gives bonuses to people fighting for you (i.e. Battle Groups), and also for making your enemy respect you and your ideology
>Of course, objective morality doesn't exist in Exalted like it does in DnD and similar games, so you could potentially use that to be a more villainous type with a cult of personality built around them
>Final technique is something that gives you bonuses based on how many people are cheering for you (i.e. How many people with positive Intimacies towards you are nearby), possibly with something to either give those people permanent buffs if you die (essentially passing the torch to them), or to come back from death once per story (essentially getting up to keep fighting for those cheering for you).
>Thinking about calling it Phoenix Style

What do you think /exg/? Okay concept?

Yet the Mortals in the Realm live better lives then 99% of Creation. It may not be good by our standards of living but its better then nearly everywhere else in Creation.

Back from death may be a stretch, but the rest sound good.

Why spear-wielding? I think a style that uses gladiator weapons would make more sense. People root for gladiators.

I refer you to

Even that is exaggerated to a good degree. Ironically, the probable best people in the Realm are IO Monks that are actually trying to help people (VS guys like Peleps Necksnapper), and even then they're some of the most misguided motherfuckers in the game.

The problem with what he is saying is the DB's don't do what he's saying. And plenty of them are decadent assholes who don't have to work for shit. The most competition in a DB's life comes from schooling age, where they all try their damndest to be the good Exalt son/daughter (despite the fact they have no actual influence over that whatsoever in terms of whether they actually Exalt), and even then they're a bunch of horrible douchebags to each other, up to and including throwing each other off cliffs.

Like I said, they're all laughably cartoonishly bad for the most part. But for every 1 "sorta good guy maybe" they throw into the fluff you get 5 to 10 Mnemon's throwing their weight around.

Oh, and what I'm saying also tends to apply to everyone else. Even Solars have cartoonishly bad motherfuckers rolling around like Havesh the Vanisher.

>Even that is exaggerated to a good degree

Its not. The rest of Creation is just that bad. The only place I can think of that might be better and is horribly subjective is Paragon. Fucking. Paragon.

Realm peasants get literacy and replace "God/fae/whatever killed/ate/raped me" with "DB's killed/ate/raped me". Which given some of the laws in the Realm shown in the books about what happens if a DB does bad things to the lessers, probably happens way more often than you'd think given they saw fit to mention such laws in the first place.

Yet less then the rest of Creation.

Can't be the good guys when you wield opium as a strategic weapon. :^)

Realm peasants get longer lifespans in return for living under an oppressive regime that is literally about to go to war with itself any time now in the game. When that shoe drops it's going to get much worse really fast.

Eh, I see where you're coming from, but then again there's two charms already that do that, also at once per story (the persona capstone charm and Doombots). But I'll admit, getting bonuses from supporters and then giving those bonuses to your supporters if you die may be more thematic.

I dunno, for some reason spears just kinda strike me as a "heroic" type of weapon, maybe because of their association with knights. Swords could also fall under that category, since they show up all the time in stories about fantasy heroes. What do you have in mind though? The only type of weapon I can think of that I'd call a gladiator weapon would be a net and trident, and catching someone in a net just to stab them while they're caught doesn't seem to fit the "awe-inspiring hero (or at least, his supporters think he's a hero)" theme.

See, the problem with this argument is that I'd have to re-read a LOT of text to confirm or deny what you're saying. As far as I remember, terrestrials were okay people in 1E and weren't allowed to become lax. Join the army, join the bureaucracy, or join the Immaculate Order. If you join the army you're making war and may be tapped to hunt down anathema, behemoths, and other high profile targets. If you join the bureaucracy you have to deal with political back-stabbing and corruption, even if you're corrupt yourself. If you join the Order you have to serve the general populace in some spiritual faction. You might perform rites or hunt anathema or whatever, but you're still working.

They did grow up fucking with each other, they often are decadent, and they sometimes murder each other, but they still have to fight the fae, keep their client kingdoms relatively unmolested by external forces, keep the peace, hunt anathema, etc.

Lookshy treats its serfs decently and the citizens have to earn their citizenship. Whitewall is nice. An-Teng and the Varangian city states. Chiascuro. Halta. Come to think of it, what you just said is complete bullshit.

Gladiators did use spears as well as short swords, daggers, shields, trident, nets, and cesti, but what really made a gladiator was how much skin he left exposed and how decorative his armor was. He was supposed to impress you with his courage. One arm and the shoulder would be armored, he'd wear a helmet and shin guards, and pick weapons that were interesting.

Fun fact: Cesti were banned from gladiatorial fights because of how fucking lethal they were to a man without armor.

Lets just ignore the past 600 years of peace for the Realm peasants then for a crisis now.

You would really want to live in ANY of those over the Realm? Really? Fucking really? In the Realm you get amazing weather. Safety. And will always have something to eat. Realm food banks prevent you from starving to famine (which virtually never happens) and as long as you or your family do not commit any crimes or do anything outside of your basic farm life you can live a nice long life. It may be a boring existence but the chances of anything happening to you is virtually nil. And if you seek adventure of excitement you could always join the legions. Things may be different in the current time with the Realm Civil war gearing up but everywhere in Creation is fucked at the moment. The further out in the Threshold you are the quicker the chances of you being put into a Solar's Torture Garden.

Sell me on 3e. I liked (not loved) 2e but I really do love 2.5, but from what I saw of early 3e material several of the game's problems are even worse. So, what's better? Why should I choose to learn 3e and try to pitch it to my group?

II should have phrased my response differently, you misinterpreted what I was trying to say. I wasn't trying to say that the Realm isn't a better place to live than the rest of Creation, I was just refuting:

>The rest of Creation is just that bad.

The rest of Creation is not universally a shithole. Some places are okay and a couple are pretty nice, like Whitewall.

Hm. Alrighty then. Although I'll admit, I was considering allowing heavy armor just because I figured a heavily armor knight-type would fit in with the style (and also because styles with heavy armor are woefully rare).

The rules are a fuckton better, which is the primary reason and the whole reason you should've swapped over already. It cannot be stated how bad 2E's rules were, they were steaming dog shit since day 1.

The fluff in 3E is about the same overall, better in some areas (more places! bigger world! less retardation overall! etc), worse in others (more Exalt types for no fucking reason! Who gives a fuck!).

Rather than focusing on a gladiator theme, why not focus on a "Heroic" theme, as you indicated in the beginning. Or perhaps simply just a "showy" or "inspiring" one. A gladiator's barely-armored form inspires his men because he is a fearless hero, unafraid of their weaponry. Similarly, a full-plated warrior stands confidently at the forefront of his army, poised and invincible in his shining armor.

Of course, full disclosure, I also think there are too few heavy-armor-compatible martial arts and I would love to see people making more.

3E is objectively better overall, though the core is all we have so far. The basic appeal of 3E is that it doesn't require piles and piles of errata to fix. The charms are generally well balanced and the way the sub-systems interact means that there are multiple valid ways to solve problems. Paranoia combat isn't a thing because combat is neither too lethal nor too defensive. Dexterity and wits are slightly more useful than the other attributes in their categories, but they definitely aren't god stats the way dexterity was in 2E. 3E is more mechanically sound in every way.

Then make a knight style, that would certainly work. Just keep in mind that there aren't really any chivalrous feudal kingdoms in the setting, so you'd have to come up with a backstory for its genesis that took that into account. Maybe the character who created the style envisions a new way of life and a new nation to embody it?

We had a lot of bad games with 2e and 2.5, getting them to try 3e has taken a long time.

The sooner you jump into 3E the better then. It's not some perfect god system to rule them all or anything, but it is a marked, 100% improvement in terms of rules.

The only weak spots are it still using the fucking awful BP based char-gen (because hurr "sistem mastaree", thanks Holden and Morke, you fucks) that you all know and associate with every White Wolf (and former WW) product ever, and the Craft system, which is pretty shit but not because it's mechanically unsound, but because Craft is just never fun in any game system and this is basically the Skyrim method of crafting (ie: "Make 100 Iron Daggers and then shit out Killblazer, Sword of 1000 Fuckenings").

Mmmm, there are more places where criticism can validly be given. The Wyld-Shaping Technique tree should've been pruned down and made part of craft, replacing some of its charms. The naval combat system sucks ass. Thaumaturgy shouldn't even exist anymore. The Bridge mechanic in Integrity is shit. And then there's just the fact that we have so little to work with when creating adversaries after four goddamn years.

>which is pretty shit but not because it's mechanically unsound, but because Craft is just never fun in any game system and this is basically the Skyrim method of crafting (ie: "Make 100 Iron Daggers and then shit out Killblazer, Sword of 1000 Fuckenings").

It is mechanically unsound, you slimy, stinky peasant: the craft XP is lost upon crafting Killblazer, Sword of Fuckening. In skyrim, you craft 100 Iron Daggers to level up your corresponding abilities, in Exalted, the craft XP represents how 'hyped' you are for craft.

It's like sex. You craft painfully 100 Iron Daggers with a story and someone who needs one to get your dick going, and it feels good, it is extended, and then in one splurge you cum your sword of fuckening, and then you are flaccid again.

If that's not the very definition of mechanically unsound, you live in a very strange place.

3e is worse than 2.0e in every way.

- Charm bloat out the fucking ass.
- Horrible subsystems (Craft, Leadership, social [takes forever just to ask someone to go down the street])
- More fucking resources to track in combat
- Rocket tag isn't fixed in the slightest (You can trivally kill someone in one hit or use one of your several dozen "lol i do decisive without it actually bring one!!!1" charms)

People here have drunk the kool-aid too deeply. Avoid it like the plague.

>Charm bloat

OH YEAH 'CAUSE THAT ISN'T PRESENT IN 2.5 TO AN EVEN WORSE EXTENT

>Horrible subsystems

See above. Craft is worse in 2.5 because it can break the game with much less effort than in 3E and 2.5 just doesn't have a decent mass warfare system. Also, the social system is pretty good in 3E in my opinion.

>More fucking resources to track in combat

What resources would those be? Initiative is only one resource. Mote regeneration is simplified.

>Rocket tag

You can bust out a first turn decisive with certain charms, but you can't actually kill or incapacitate your opponent with one hit. Not even a heroic mortal.

>You can bust out a first turn decisive with certain charms, but you can't actually kill or incapacitate your opponent with one hit. Not even a heroic mortal.

You *can*, you just need to spend most of your resources to do it. Even at essence 5, wiping a mortal off the face of the earth turn one requires a solid 1/5-1/3 of your mote pool depending on what you're packing.

Which ignore the fact that said mortal might be a trivial opponent who you kill in 1 hit with no charms using your withering damage pool anyway.

That other guy proooobably wasn't talking about that.

Ya took the bait.

I'd argue with you, but I don't feel like waiting for you to run out of motes for perfect defense spam.

>2.5 charm bloat
That edition had a shitton of charms, but at least most of them had a purpose. There were some that were bad, but it had this thing called essence expansion, where at a certain level new abilities were added onto an existing charm, rather than make a new one. Alchemicals (the best splat) had the same thing with submoules. No need to make new charms, just expand on older ones. What does 3e have? Here's an example.

Whispered Prayer of Judgement
After using an aim action, the Solar may use this to charge his shot with wrathful Essence, adding (Essence) damage to the attack.

THAT is the Archery capstone. A damage adder, that could have been an expansion to any other charm in the tree, a minor secondary ability to something actually worth taking. But no, in 3e, this is an Archery 5, Essence 5 charm that has to be it's own thing, for no reason I can see besides being an XP sink. 2.5 had it's problems, but to say 3e fixed charm bloat is just retarded.

>Sex is mechanically unsound

Thanks, Veeky Forums

What Charms would each Exalt type use to dispose of a corpse, or any other similarly large body of evidence?

>2e core, 18 Melee charms
>3e core, 38 MELEE CHARMS
Nigger what?

To continue, we'll just cover the rest of Dawn Caste, because I don't have patience for all 5 castes, but not MA charms, then you're getting into what styles count and it's bullshit, keep it simple.

>2e Archery: 13 charms
>3e Archery: 28 charms

>2e Thrown: 8 charms
>3e Thrown: 24 charms

>2e War: 9 charms
>3e War: 17 charms

SO PLEASE, TELL ME HOW 3E FIXED CHARM BLOAT.

How many Solar Melee charms are there across all of 2.Xe?

I don't think that's a fair comparison. We are examining the core book, and there can always bee more melee charms that come out later in 3e. If we are only going to examine 3e's core, then we should only examine 2e's core as well.

I agree that 3e is miles ahead of 2e, but saying that it's better in terms of charm bloat is just retarded.

>Hardly anyone knows how the Usurpation doomed Creation.
Gold Faction pls go.

Designing craft after sex triggers me far more than any rape ghost charm.

I don't want to cum weapons after a lengthy love making with iron daggers. It's filthy, it's stinky, there's mess everywhere, no one really knows how to do it correctly, except the one with STDs. At this cost you should summon demon to do it for you, Alveua is a cute pie who do it 24/24 and is far better at it than you.

I wasn't looking to make a fair comparison, I was just wondering how many there were.

Those shoulders trigger the fuck out of me despite knowing that Alveua is supposed to be partially a bug girl with weird joints.

keep in mind that the kind of retard who likes 2e and hates 3e is almost invariably in love with infernals (particularly devil tigers) or magitech and thinks exalted should be about piloting the sun, which is a giant spaceship, so you and your essence 10 circle can drop kick the ebon dragon back into malfeas when he breaks out again this week

Fuck, I don't even begin to pretend to know what charms are in all the books, but the Ink Monkey book added 19, Glories Unconquered Sun added 5, and Lords of Creation added only 3.

Fuck you, I like 2.5 and dislike 3e, but Infernals are trash. Alchemicals and magitech are the shit though.

>I like 2.5
Translation: "MMMH! I SURE DO LOVE THE TASTE OF SHIT! WHY AREN'T YOU GUYS EATING ALL THIS SHIT WITH ME? IT'S GREAT! I LOVE ALL THIS SHIT! SHIT IS SO GREAT, I JUST WANNA SHOVEL IT ALL IN MY MOUTH!"

Alchemicals and magitech are pretty cool, tho

Hey, when 3e adds enough material to have even half the variety 2.5 did, I'll be all in. But when I can get magic, sci fi, power armor, airships, lightsabers, wuxia, and Power Rangers: Avatar Edition in 2.5, why would I quit playing it? No system is flawless, but I can accept that to get all this cool stuff. What can you play as in 3e? Solars. 2.5?

Solars
Lunars
Infernals (bleh)
Abyssals
Terrestrials
Alchemicals
Heroic mortals
Gods
Dragon Kings
Jadeborn

There's just more to it, what's so wrong with liking that?

You forgot to list the Fae and Ghost/Godblooded.

Thank you. Plus half-castes, which are very similar to godbloods but have completely different story opportunities. When 3e lets me play a half-caste Solar who puts on a suit of celestial battle armor and pretends to be a full Exalt to lead the Wyld Hunt away from the village their Medicine specialist mother is trying to cure of a soul-eating virus that mutates every 5 minutes to avoid being cured, let me know. Let me know when 3e lets me play teenage impostor Iron Man.

>Wanting to play a half-caste
>Liking half-caste
You just really enjoy showing off how much you like shit, don't you?

It's not about which you prefer, it's about having the choice.

>Likes having choice
>Complains about how many charms there are in 3e

I said that saying 3e fixed charm bloat was wrong.