Exalted General - /exg/

thanks

Hahaha, good post, /exg/.

But can your character defeat The Prince of Red Chambers?

>implying I have a character
If I did, I guess he could. Prince of the Red Chamber is pretty scary, like a nephwrack should be, but nothing a Solar can't handle.

The dice pools are actually really easy to get on chargen (my essence 1 dawn has soak/hardness 16/10 due to solar plate, 14 dice on daiklave attack with damage/overwhelming 16/4 can be tweaked depending on weapon type, resolve 4, feats of strength 10 etc. It's his cancer-AIDS charms and the fuckhuge mote pool/health track that are the main problem. And this is considering the fucker will fight alone, and he most certainly won't.

the ST makes a point not to use corruption as the singular motivation for why anyone in Yu-Shan acts they way they do and instead plays up things like the idea of celestial gods vs. terrestrial gods vs. elementals

That sounds like a good idea. Gods should have few universally shared valuesor motivations, in general. They shouldn't feel like copies of each other or anything like that. One of the many, many dumb things about that 2E sidebar about gods hating the Dragon-Blooded was that it claimed all gods to share the same sentiments. Also, I'd say that one of the reasons for the Celestial Bureaucracy being in its current state should be different gods just having different ideas about how things should be done. In my experience, this is a big part of conflicts and inconsistent policies in real life organizations. Laziness, incompetence and short-sighted selfishness aren't the only things that can fuck things up. Sometimes people who are genuinely good at their jobs and dedicated to them can just have differences of opinion, and these differences can hinder everyone's work. Heaven should have some of that in addition to corruption.

>One of the many, many dumb things about that 2E sidebar about gods hating the Dragon-Blooded was that it claimed all gods to share the same sentiments

If a mafia of retards came in and demanded, hamfistedly, you follow their new rules or else they'll fuckin' murder you, when you've been happily being a corrupt fuck banging all the mortals and getting all of the illicit players, for the past fuck knows how long, yeah, you'd be none too keen on them. And you'd tell your buddies who were doing the same. And soon it's spread throughout your entire corrupt organization (ie: Heaven) that these fucks are bad news and no one is keeping them in check. So yeah, I can easily, fully believe a bunch of immortal politicians who are getting squeezed by some shithead false religion mafia, can easily form a "You know what, fuck these guys" opinion.

>illicit players

Prayers. Fuck, I blame the alcohol on this one.

This is why you get an Eclipse to Oath the prayer system to work properly

Oh wait they'll just replace the gods who got Oath'd

worst thing about that sidebar was that for such a sweeping statement this wasn't even the god book (that was RoGD1) this would be like if MoEP: Abyssals had talked about all Lunars secretly feeling an urge to fuck animals.

The blade of that naginata looks awfully... golden. That Dynast better have a good explanation.

It's white jade with decoration

Plausible deniability

>only Dynast's can have families now

Not all Dragon-Blooded are in the Realm. Not even the majority of the Dragon-Blooded are in the Realm. Gods' hatred is specifically for Dragon-Blooded, all Dragon-Blooded, not just Immaculates. Aside from that, since gods are individuals rather than an army of clones with identical personalities, not all of the are corrupt. The ones who give a shit about doing their jobs shouldn't have a huge problem with a religion that asks them to, you know, do their jobs. A bunch of shitters having strong opinions about how they should to their job would probably be annoying, but nothing more than that. The whole thing is retarded, no matter how you spin it.

I'm playing an Eclipse so I figured I'd make myself a cheat sheet for using the Social Influence rules. If you get a chance please take a look and let me know if I can make things clearer, and if anything looks wrong.

That's a guandao.

The organization in question isn't a small company where everybody knows each other, it's an organization with millions and millions of individuals.

They shouldn't share ANY broad strokes of characterization, that's just lazy writing.

Holy shit, that's pretty solid. Only thing I can see that's vaguely confusing as to the flow is on the right with Read Intentions.

You have "Discern what others want to achieve" and "Determine what Intimacies someone has" that both split with one arrow going into "Read Intentions" but the other one skipping it to the result of the Read Intentions.

What are you trying to convey there?

And a small typo at the bottom "Length Debates" instead of "Lengthy Debates."

You mean sort of how entire countries hate other entire countries, and it's a popular sentiment even if occasionally the individual's opinion differs?

Saying entire countries hate other countries is lazy simplification. Each person in a country is not a monolith of that country so individual interactions are going to skew all over the place depending on where you go, who you talk to, and a hundred other variables.

Just like a Dragonblood is not ALL Dragonbloods. Sure, have some level of suspicion from gods because of what Dragonbloods have done, even say "many gods do not trust the Dragonblooded because of past indignities suffered to other gods" but don't give every single god a Major or Defining Intimacy "Dragonbloods are less than trash, every last one of them."

It gets rid of much more nuanced interactions and turns every single god encounter into fight/threaten which is uninteresting.

I was just trying to be clever and have one Read Intentions action box. I prefer clarity for this sort of thing so I've broken them into two flows.

Typo fixed. Thank you!

Looking in the book now since we're talking about it. The pink box after Read Intentions "Need to generally describe what kind of Intimacy you want to discern" has to be declared before the roll. I'm not sure where in the flow chart you are intending the roll to take place, I feel that's pretty important to denote since most Charms must be activated before you roll.

Question, anons: in 3e, if a player wanted to summon one of the black stone riding beasts from Compass: Malfeas using Demon of the First Circle, do you think it'd be reasonable to just use the stats for an Armored Elephant for it, and just give it an Essence score of 2 or 3, an appropriate Mote Pool, the general Spirit charms that all 1st Circle Demons have (Materialize, Hurry Home, and Taste The Wind), along with a few of the appropriate Magical Abilities from the Animals section of the scorebook as Charms?

Would being able to use Demon of the First Circle summon something with Legendary Size be overpowered? Mostly just want something that my sorcerer can lounge around in luxury as they ride around in a howdah on.

Hm. I was intending for the Roll to happen at the first set of Diamonds. I'll make it more explicit in my next pass.

I rearranged the Read Intentions needs / effects boxes, is this more clear?

Entire countries don't hate entire other countries, though. Aside from individual opinions - which obviously matter alot - countries generally have large segments of population that don't share the popular sentiment. It's not really similar to the way gods' attitude towards DBs is presented in 2E.

My Solar could wipe her ass with that thing in a 1v1.

(I'm really more concerned about any allies/battlegroups he'd bring with him)

What are some design objectives that would constitute "solid" defensive combat charm selection? I'm trying to make a list.
>At least 1 obligatory perfect defence panic button
>Static defence increase/ignoring the penalties besides simple excellencies which are gonna get spammed both ways anyway
>A way to deal with post-soak when they finally hit you
>A way to deal with surprises/crashes
>Optional but good: rerolls, double Xs, health levels etc.

Looks good, definitely going to use this for my new players.

Sweet. If they have any questions or head-scratching moments I'd love to hear about it. I'll keep improving this thing for as long as I keep getting feedback.

what are you doing on 4chins kas

I'm playing an Eclipse in a game really early on Sundays and I needed to re-learn the Social Influence system since I'd forgotten it all. I figured I would make a cheat sheet to remind myself and to help other people learning the system.

Also new phone, who dis?

So, question, anons: if I'm playing a Social-focused Solar, who has a Fair Folk Lorelei as a Mentor for sorcery and social manipulation, and my Solar has Celestial Bliss Trick and a bunch of seduction charms, would it be reasonable for both the Solar and the Raksha mentor to have Defining Intimacies of Love towards each other because they slept together and the Raksha used Thousand Tiny Hooks Technique to give the Solar a Defining Intimacy towards them, while the Solar used Celestial Bliss Trick to do the same thing back at the Raksha, or would I need to buy the Faerie as an Ally or Retainer as well as a Mentor?

wanting to fuck the shit out of one another isn't really love.

I'd say it's reasonable, in the context that the intimacies are built on their superhuman sexual prowess rather than deep emotional bonds, so you wouldn't get the same unconditional support you might with a close friend or lover. Otherwise, you'd probably want to buy the Raksha as an Ally or Retainer (though I'd say instead of Mentor, rather than in addition).

If memory serves, relationships with Mentors are meant to be more distant, while Allies and Retainers are weaker but more loyal. There's no reason they couldn't offer some training, though.

Do you want to make a good character or be insufferable to actually kill?

>A way to deal with post-soak when they finally hit you

Very few charms do this. Durability of Oak and Bulwark Stance. Best way is avoiding being hit in the first place or just having a large initiative value. Getting Superheavy plate and getting that one resistance charm that grants initiative for being hit is the best method for this.

>A way to deal with surprises/crashes

There are not many good ways to deal with crashes other than don't be crashed and smack someone really hard with an all-in withering attack before their next action. Surprise attacks are easier. Even if you don't get Reflex Sidestep/SAM you can still take some bite out of a surprise attack by going really well on Join Battle, which you can still slam an excellency on even if your character didn't detect someone stealthed.

Unless they're Ebon Shadow, then its painful.

HGD also cancels out surprise attacks, but you need the sword physically in your hand before the attack is launched, and no you cannot use Call of the Blade to do so.

>Optional but good: rerolls, double Xs, health levels etc.

The HL adding charm will get you so much milage in Resistance it isn't even funny.

You also missed one.

>Multiattack nullifier

A high hardness will usually stop a lot of multiattacks dead, but Brawl/Melee will still be problematic. Dodge will laugh in their face. Use Hundred Shadow Ways on Excellent Strike/Hungry Tiger or Falling Hammer Strike, Melee/Brawl suddenly lose their key charms for adding damage on multiattacks. You could use Hundred Shadow Ways on the multiattack itself, but locking down bread and butter charms hurts far more than locking down multiattack charms.

>kiting (ranged builds)

Ride is the king of this, but even if you get Ride you Dodge and grab Leaping Dodge Method, this is non-negotiable. You want to be able to attack at short range.

That's only with insane tumblrites, and they aren't going to play exalted or even get involved in it to any noticeable amount

white wolf stuff is in that zone where it is really leftist, yet often pretty offensive (gypsies, werewolves, etc).

It's a decent starting point for love, though, at least for humans. Who knows about the Fair Folk.

This thread seems to be headed to the early grave compared to the past ones. Is there a specific reason for this, or are we just having a slow phase?

Lull before Arms of the Chosen release.

You obviously underestimate how retarded SJW's can be, and how they'll go out of their way to ruin something they have no interest in. See: Marvel comics, and Exalted itself with all of the dumb shit surrounding 3E's development.

ded gaem

This
Honestly why play Exalted when you can use Godbound for it instead?

>Is there a specific reason for this, or are we just having a slow phase?

No books in a long time, constant delays, etc. Most interesting thing in weeks has been the "sex scandal", which literally has nothing to do with the game anyway. Also no art dumps in a while.

People are waiting for Arms p. much

I'd rather play 2.5e than Godbound. Hell Fate Core systems like an unironically better choice for Godbound that the d20 the writer is wedded to.

Are right, waiting on big book drop which should be soon(tm)

I blame Holden. Or the jews. Most probably a mix of both.

Too long have the jews corrupted our /exg/. Once, /exg/ was home of a proud and powerful race of shitposters and morons. Now we are all but retards, craft apologists, or even, God forbid, feminists.

...

>being this bad at reading tone

Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company.

t. some nerd on the internet

Yes, but is a community where you can't make a joke for the fear of attracting idiots even worth protecting from the said idiots?

Yes.

Sorry, user, that's the wrong answer. Not having to watch your words as carefully as in some other forums is a big prt of Veeky Forums's charm. Giving up that freedom to 'protect' the community would be completely counterproductive.

The problem with that attitude is that the signal to noise ratio has sunk to zero.

How should you use Clash Attacks?

To fuck over people focused on Dodge.

They're incredibly efficient for you because they are simultaneously your attack and defense. Not only are you safe if you win the roll, you also get to do another attack's worth of damage to them and in Dodge people's case, completely bypass what they're good at.

I wonder what would stats for a deathlord be.

Abyssal splat fucking never.

>Morke
Was he the guy who wrote the rape ghosts?

Thread is about to die, but a Deathlord gives it a choice. It's gonna be saved from death, but in exchange it needs to take the most ridiculous, but at the same time plausible in-universe, name you can come up with. Bonus points if it's the name of your Abyssal from one of your games.

Clock's ticking, /exg/.

funny how Veeky Forums tends to have a much higher signal to noise ratio than all of the mandatory smile zones

That was Holden.

27 Voices Screaming In The Darkness

No, user, you'll have to be even more verbose. Like Twenty-Seven Cries of Euphoric Anguish Clad in Purest Twilight or something.

Having a deathlord who's several different people inside one body would actually be pretty rad. Beats most of the unoriginal fanfic-tier ideas I've seen all these years. Like drinking concentrated Linkin Park-flavored mountain dew.

Like an inverted Voldemort. I like it. Maybe fluff it as the Neverborn running out of sufficiently powerful Solar ghosts and desiring another Deathlord anyway, then cramming a bunch of inferior ghosts together and welding the mess together with soulsteel and the ruined third circle soul.

I'd do something like this:

The Deathlord is clad in [insert clothes/armor here], but wears no helmet or mask. Their face is beautiful, as if carved of pure alabaster, but something is off. It never stays the same, changing every moment, and when you blink it's like you're suddenly standing before a completely different person. Their voice is entrancing, bewitching even, and the intonation is impossible to grasp, as if it shifts just like their face.

Voices is an amalgamation of [insert number here] souls. Usually only a single soul takes control of the body, for several minutes, hours, days, and only on extremely rare occasions they speak in unison (like when talking to deathknights or their Neverborn patron). The souls are weaker than those singular souls of other Deathlords, and they lack a single motivation and purpose besides serving the Neverborn (and even that is debatable), but they still were among the best of their time when they were alive. The merging definitely drove them crazy(er) though. Now they spend all their time plotting, sometimes even against each other.

They possess vast networks of agents and spies (belonging to different personalities), and if not for their schism they'd surely be one of the most powerful and influential Deathlords. Any soul they devour joins the chorus and allows Voices to use its knowledge in its entirety. Perhaps a really strong soul might even become part of the Voices personality.

Motivation:
Depends on the soul in question. Most of them are going along with their Neverborn patron's plan, but can't agree on the methods. Some might despise their new existence, some are just glad to be "alive", and some are so went completely insane.

Strengths:
Multiple souls accumulated much more experience and knowledge than most singular beings.
Extreme multitasking and diversification allow a soul to concentrate on what it does best.
When souls are in unison, Voices can use all their abilities and knowledge.

Weaknesses:
Difference in opinions makes important decisions almost impossible to make.
All souls want to assume control at all times, and some hate each other so much that they plot against them and try to subvert their plans when they're in control.
Some souls might be against the Neverborn plans.

Deathknights:
Are given absolute freedom as long as they complete their mission. Are chosen by ALL the souls combined, only when they reach consensus, which probably leads to a deathknight being an interesting person to say the least.

Story ideas:
If we're going by what 3e Abyssals are probably gonna be, Voices should be an interesting Deathlord to serve. You get almost absolute freedom in how you want to do things, and there's always a possibility that particular souls would want you to do some covert work for them for a reward, as long as you don't tell the others. There could be some kind souls who'd want you to redeem yourself and break your monstrance even.

So Veeky Forums, how was your last session?

Was my second session ever. My Dawn caste (I asked for character advice for him in one of the previous threads) honorabru 1v1'd a leader of the wyld hunt who was supposed to be like the serious recurring bad guy, I think. I also think our GM took his stats straight from the main book as well (Immaculate of Earth). He had a small army and dragonblooded lieutenants. I challenged him to a honor duel, and he apparently didn't want to lose face or was too cocky and agreed. I rolled higher on join battle and crashed him to -1 with my very first attack despite him doing some bullshit defensive charms. Then I was pretty spooked when he hit me, halved my soak and had like 20 raw damage. Luckily, my Dawn dude had that charm that lets you apply soak against unsoakable damage and adds to soak, so he didn't do any initiative damage at all, and was at 0 initiative. Then we burned like 30 motes and almost all our willpower, but in the end I managed to land 2 decisive attacks (he had a shitton of health levels as well) while losing only like 1 or 2 initiative when he hit me. The final attack cleaved his head off as everyone around gasped in awe. The army was shaken, and although one of the lieutenants wanted to finish me off, my circle was still fresh, and others had to pick up the body and leave in peace.

All in all, I feel sorry for the party that had to put up with my bullshit heroics, and the GM who wanted to increase the tension and stakes (and still gave me that 3-point stunt in the fight), but the battle was really cool. I was positively terrified when I looked at the stats in the book and found out that the Earth guy could've gotten +4 more to soak against everything if he'd have won initiative. Looking forward to facing several dragonblooded fucks at the same time while walking through some dark alley.

>funny how Veeky Forums tends to have a much higher signal to noise ratio than all of the mandatory smile zones
who are you trying to convince? anyone who'd read that already comes here

i have no idea what youre asking me

Although out his life people had called him Bad Otto, and with his jacked-up muscles, stylish leather jackets, high tolerance for booze and worse, and propensity for bar room brawls, he couldn't quite disagree with their assessment. He was bad--bad to the bone.

Or rather, he *was* bad. Now that he had gone to deaths doorstep and made a deal with (who he suspected) was the reaper himself, he was much worse than that. Much more than that.

Bad Otto died.

Evil Otto lives.

>i have no idea what youre asking me
You advertising how great Veeky Forums is compared to other website, to people who already go to this website.

What's the point?

Pretty solid, just started running a Dragonblood game and an Abyssal led horde of zombies and ghosts almost killed 2 of my 3 players.

So overall, doin' all right.

Wait wait wait, hold on one second
I never really thought much of the whole DB breeding timer thing, in fact I was one of the ones in support of it, but does this mean the crazy cynis sex stuff is going away? Or just DB's being kinda hedonistic in general?

They're probably sexual for sexuality's sake instead of everyone trying to get pregnant. How big were dynastic families before? Was it like the Christian "Quiverfull" movement where every couple was expected to have a dozen kids? Maiden tea starts at Resources 2, which isn't inexpensive, but I doubt any Dynast won't be able to afford it.

DB's have always been hedonistic for its own sake for the most part.

Since 1e the average gap between children from Dragonblood Dynasts was 12 years, with 5 years being the minimum and 50 years being the maximum. They've never wanted to have 20 something kids even though lifespan-wise they could.

Raising Dynast kids is fucking expensive, you don't know which one will Exalt so you have to pay for the best private schooling money can buy just in case they do Exalt. The Realm also doesn't want a ton of Dragonbloods in it necessarily. It can only support so many people the ridiculously lavish lifestyle that Dynasts have. They want a group of Dragonbloods who absolutely 100% buy into what the Realm is selling and it's much easier to do that when the people telling you to live by all these rules and codes and shit also hand you $1,000,000 a year after you get out of college with the promise of more to come.

All the addition of the recharge period really did was make the time burden of children split equally among the sexes. Its inclusion doesn't change any other family dynamics that have previously been explained. It also served to get rid of the concept of breeding farms that was inexplicably prevalent within the community. Now, a guy can knock up one mortal woman and then he's gotta wait, just like a woman does.

What this also serves to do is make the Realm much more egalitarian, women Dragonbloods would be put in dangerous situations just as often as men since you really don't want a surplus of either sex since both have to recharge. The ideal ratio for population growth is close to 1:1.

The point is, presumably, to correct the mistaken statement of .

An important point following from all of this is that the people who were complaining about how the 'progebitive Essence' or whatever changes the Realm were kind of retarded, because the Realm isn't really changed much. The numbers make at least somewhat more sense now, that's all. Like, I remember an user complaining about how the age gap between siblings in 3E undermines the family themes of Dragon-Blooded, because siblings probably won't have very close ties. The average age gap between siblings has been about the smae in previous editions, however, close sibling ties have never been a common thing among the Dynas, and Dragon-Blooded aren't about family in the nuclear family sense. Sometimes people who (presumably) like Exalted are bizarrely ignorant of Exalted's fluff.

Four chins on a bloated frog.

Unfortunately, even without boogeymen that's already not really true. I disagreed with some user because I like a different flavor of HFY, was called extremely autistic for not couching my statement in "Well I think" weak statements. Veeky Forums does lack long term accountability, so you can be a retard in one thread and move on. Unless some fag like me decides to bring it up again I guess.

On topic though, anyone have fun ideas for Manse Dungeon delving games, specifically for mortals. I have some ideas but I'd like to steal yours too.

What about something like the Ordos Executrix

>Having a deathlord who's several different people inside one body would actually be pretty rad

You can take literally any Old School D&D deathtrap dungeon and convert it into an Exalted Manse/dungeon. I've been thinking of making Tomb of Horrors into one, then adapting Return to the Tomb of Horrors as a death cult led by Abyssals set up around the same dungeon.

Also, Oriental Adventures scenarios in Dungeon magazine convert very easily into Exalted, since a lot of them deal with spirits/elementals/folklore creatures.

I feel like that one's more fun for either one shot or Exalts so you don't kill characters, but that's a fun idea.
I've done a few decent ones myself, one haunted by a pair of children ghosts that the old Solar inhabitant had become the anchor of (who were following his instructions not to follow him when he went into the inner sanctum during the usurpation) and was otherwise largely a spooky manse with fun features the circle could use as a homebase if they wanted.

The one in my head is a giant, smooth tower seemingly made of lead or a similarly dull metal in a forest so heavily earth aspected that the local fungi have overtaken trees and they, along with the local wildlife have begun forming iron shells. I've... not really mentally filled out the tower or even come up with the way to get inside the tower yet.

Back when 3e first came out I converted Isle of Dread into an Exalted adventure. Unfortunately, it was a Play-by-Post game so it wound up dying before they actually got to do much.

If you have your notes I'd love to see them. Adapting other shit to Exalted mechanically sounds fun but challenging to get right.

>Linkin Park-flavoured mountain dew

toppest of keks

Wasn't a mote somewhere around Hiroshima's amount of energy?

I think so?
It was something stupid like that.